Commentary: Groupthink is informing Measure Y support

Being elected to the Newport Beach City Council or even being appointed to fill a vacancy or serve on a commission in no way conveys any special omniscience.

Several members of the council recently posited that the city’s credit rating, fund balances and reserves, and relationships with the business community make Newport the city that it is. Most of us would like the city to remain the residential community that we know it to be and not an ever-expanding corporate footprint as proposed by the City Council through Measure Y.

The big voting bloc in our city is the corporate citizen with all its power, and it can out-vote every registered voter in Newport Beach.

The Y initiative started with council and commissioner groupthink. Members are all programmed to be proactive for development through their associations as City Hall insiders.

What is group think? According to the late psychologist Irving Janis, “Groupthink is a phenomenon that occurs when the desire for group consensus overrides people’s common sense desire to present alternatives, critique a position, or express an unpopular opinion. Here, the desire for group cohesion effectively drives out good decision-making and problem solving.”

Janis goes on to say that groupthink prevails when there is a strong, persuasive group leader, a high level of group cohesion and intense pressure from the outside to make particular decisions (corporate citizen.).

One can notice groupthink in Newport Beach when a council member, city commissioner, city staffer or an advocate for Measure Y speaks or writes publicly. They all sound like automatons reading from a script. Peer pressure is applied openly or silently to any particular dissenter on an issue that is group-supported, and the dissenter succumbs and once again becomes a team player.

Reflecting now on those early years of the 2000s, Newport Beach council members always carried the water for local developers. Do you remember the Free Newport Beach movement, which was an antecedent to the Green Light Initiative?

Green Light was a response to Team Newport’s assault on open space in the city. You will easily recognize the names of those former council and Chamber of Commerce members who made up the Team Newport PAC, and they are still proselytizing for more building and development.

The two years that the current council, commissioners and city staff spent preparing Measure Y was just an extension of the former Team Newport’s goals. A walkable city? Please, show more creativity, City Council.

To be sure, there are some nice people, amiable people, competent people and friendly people on the council and among the commissioners. But they are on the side of the corporate citizen with the deep pockets and media connections.

Our City Council has a dangerous penchant for favoring corporate interests in Newport Beach. This is a great time to reevaluate the council’s commitment to keeping Newport Beach a residential community.

JERRY ALSTON lives in Newport Beach.