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Newport Beach voters are now poised to vote on a series of ballot initiatives reshaping the city’s charter to expand transparency, throw out their housing plan and change how city council members are elected. 

Those initiatives made it to the ballot after OC Superior Court Judge Julianne Bancroft found the city council “abused its discretion,” by trying to push several of the initiatives to the 2028 election, ordering them to move forward with a 2026 election instead. 

“This Court has the authority in this mandamus proceeding to order the City Council to immediately take the necessary steps to place these three initiatives on the November 3, 2026 ballot,” reads the minute order from Bancroft’s decision. 

To read the order, click here. 

Despite the order, Orange County’s top lawyer Leon Page said the city is already past the deadline for the initiatives in a letter sent yesterday, and county registrar Bob Page declined to comment on the issue on Thursday afternoon. 

Newport Beach leaders said they would be reaching out to Page for more information after the ruling in a Thursday afternoon statement. 

“The City will be reaching out to the Orange County Registrar of Voters to determine what the County of Orange needs from the City to comply with the order,” wrote spokesperson Georgia Rios.  

Bancroft’s decision came after she said city leaders’ actions “could lead to a finding of obstructionism,” earlier this month, highlighting a series of delays the city made in putting the initiatives on the ballot through a series of lawsuits earlier this year. 

“The Court was required to order the City on multiple occasions to prepare ballot questions and arguments,” reads Bancroft’s decision from Aug. 19. “The point of doing so was to prevent the delays that the City now contends prevent these initiatives from going on the November 2026 ballot.” 

Read: Judge Orders Newport Beach to Move Forward with Ballot Initiatives

There are now four ballot initiatives set to go before the voters on the Nov. 2026 ballot, all of which were sponsored by the Newport Beach Stewardship Association. 

Originally, only one initiative dubbed the Responsible Housing Initiative was set to go on the ballot this year. 

If approved by the voters, it  would require the city throw out their existing housing plan and adopt one that zones for fewer new homes, which would likely lead to a lawsuit with the state of California as it would pull the city out of compliance with its state mandated housing plan. 

Read: Newport Beach Voters to Decide on Taking Control of City’s Housing Plan

The association had three other initiatives it sponsored that governed a host of changes to the city charter, including stricter eight-year term limits for city council members, a shift to district voting and a host of transparency measures to expand public access.

But earlier this week, Newport Beach City Council members voted to put those initiatives on the Nov. 2028 ballot instead, a decision Bancroft originally said they could make if they justified their reasoning in her ruling earlier this month. 

Council members didn’t say much when they voted 5-2 on Tuesday night to push the initiatives to the 2028 election, with Councilmembers Michelle Barto and Robyn Grant voting against the delay. 

“We’re not making any value judgement up here at all on the individual merits of any of these initiatives,” Grant said. “Our role tonight is to provide certainty and allow the process to come to a conclusion.” 

There aren’t many public details available about the Newport Beach Stewardship Association or its members, with none of their members’ names listed on the organization’s website and court filings describing it as an “unincorporated association.” 

The four initiatives’ nearly $1 million signature gathering effort was entirely funded by local developer Ken Picerne according to campaign disclosures, with former mayor Marshall “Duffy” Duffield serving as treasurer for the effort. 

In a Wednesday interview, Duffield said the goal behind the measures was to help limit uncontrolled development throughout the city. 

“You can barely park in Fashion Island and get an ice cream, no one wants 30,000 more people except the Irvine Company,” Duffield said.

Duffield also noted that Picerne had property holdings down by the airport, but claimed the goal was to make sure that whatever development comes in is done responsibly. 

“He (Picerne) just wants it done responsibly, and he does have projects within the city out by the airport so it is in his favor that these things get built,” Duffield said. “He doesn’t want to overbuild it.”

It remains unclear if the judge actually has the power to put the initiatives on the ballot after County Counsel Leon Page said the city already missed the deadlines to put them before voters in a letter to the initiative proponents’ lawyers yesterday. 

“A city requesting consolidation with the November 3, 2026 statewide general election was required to file its resolution no later than August 7, 2026,” Page wrote. “The County did not receive a request for consolidation for the three measures.” 

“The Registrar will continue to follow applicable law and established election deadlines, including those governing consolidation requests.” 

County Registrar Bob Page declined to comment on the order on Thursday afternoon. 

Correction: An earlier version of this story said the letter declaring Newport Beach was too late to submit initiatives came from county Registrar Bob Page. The letter was from County Counsel Leon Page on Bob Page’s behalf. We regret the error.

Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org.