Ed Selich arrived at VEA Newport Beach resort on Monday morning, August 4, expecting to attend a planning meeting for Speak Up Newport (Selich is the organization’s president).
Instead, he was greeted by a group of well-wishers who told Selich he had been named Newport Beach 2025 Citizen of the Year by the Newport Beach Chamber of Commerce.
The Chamber of Commerce always plans the Citizen of the Year announcement as a surprise, and Selich was indeed caught off guard.
“I’m shocked actually,” Selich told the Newport Beach Independent after he was informed that he was joining an elite group of residents who have been Citizens of the Year. “I am very honored to be part of them. Obviously, they have been some of the most outstanding citizens of importance with all the contributions they have made. So yeah, I am surprised.”
In making the presentation, Newport Beach Chamber of Commercr President and CEO Steve Rosansky noted that “Ed’s been in service to the city for decades. If you look at the criteria for Citizen of the Year, it’s not for just doing one thing, it’s for a long series of volunteering, of leading groups, of raising my hand and saying I’ll volunteer and do whatever needs to get done. Ed fulfills that criteria. He was on the city’s Planning Commission for many years, and he was a city council member and a former mayor. He is the head of Speak Up Newport and he’s an advocate of Friends of Oasis, which is a separate little board that’s part of the Friends organization.”
Selich, a resident of Newport Beach for more than 40 years, will be honored formally at a Newport Beach Chamber of Commerce Honors event this fall.
According to information on the Chamber’s website, the Newport Beach Citizen of the Year award is “presented to that individual who best represents the qualities each of us admire and respect among our friends, neighbors and associates. It’s not given so much for achievement, as it is for helping others achieve. It’s not given for outstanding single effort, as much as for long-term, continuing commitment to the community. It’s not given for position, public or private, as it is for “being there” when there is service called for. It’s not given so much for being a member, or for paying dues, or for financial contribution, as it is for being the one everybody wants on the Committee when there’s a job to be done. It’s for the one who says ‘Sure – I’ll help – what do we need to do?’ And then does it.”
And finally, it’s for the one who says “Newport Beach is my home and my life, and its future and mine are the same. Whatever I can do to make them better, I will do.”
Rosansky explained the process of selecting a Citizen of the Year.
“I convene a luncheon over at the Bahia Corinthian Yacht Club and previous Citizens of the Year are invited. They nominate different people. We probably had 12 to 14 different potential nominees this year. Then we go through a process where they talk about them all and we narrow the list down to a few, and then we pick the one for this year. Ed’s name has been on the list before, but like anything it takes time—there are a lot of deserving people in town.”
Selich recalled one of the events that motivated him to get involved in the city.
“I drove down Coast Highway and they were cutting down all the Ficus trees, and I said what the heck’s going on? So, I got involved with the Corona del Mar Business Improvement District. We came up with the plan to do the landscape medians, which probably doesn’t sound like that big of a deal, but if you look the before and after pictures, it made a huge improvement.”
Selich was also on the City Council when the OASIS Senior Center was built, and the Civic Center.
“I was head of the committee overseeing the Civic Center design. And then we did Marina Park.”
Marina Park’s original architecture was cool, said Selich, but bland. Selich came up with a lighthouse design.
“We needed something iconic, and that’s how the lighthouse got there,” recalled Selich. “We had to go to the Coastal Commission. The Coastal Commission wanted to cut it off. Then we put the tsunami siren in it, and the Coastal Commission said okay you can have the full 75 feet of height.”
Selich joins a long list of Citizen of the Year honorees dating back to 1949. Recent honorees include Marie Case (2024), Laird Hayes (2023), David Beek (2022), Walt Howald (2021), Joe Stapleton (2020), former Mayor Nancy Gardner (2019), Debbie Snavely (2018), former City Manager Homer Bludau (2017), John and Elizabeth Stahr (2016), Paul Watkins (2015), Jack and Nancy Skinner (2014), Jean Watt (2013), Tom Johnson (2011/2012), and the late Ralph Rodheim (2010).
Visit www.NewportBeach.com for more information.
