Courtney Santos and Farrah Khan
There are a ton of candidates running for the Irvine City Council this year. We have done our homework – we will break them down here and endorse a few of them.
The Irvine City Council candidates include: Continue reading
Irvine Council Member Beth Krom has announced that she will not be running for re-election this year.
Here is a letter she sent to the O.C. Register explaining her decision: Continue reading
Irvine has officially repealed Larry Agran’s living wage ordinance 4 to 1, according to Irvine Finance Commissioner Allan Bartlett’s Facebook page. The only vote in support of the living wage ordinance came from liberal Irvine City Councilwoman Beth Krom.
GOP consultant Jon Fleischman had this to say about the repeal: “It will take many, many years to undo the damage that Larry Agran and his far-left liberal majority did on the Irvine City Council over a decade of ruling the city. The fact that Irvine is the ONLY city in all of Orange County with a goofy “living wage” law should say something. Kudos to the Republican supermajority in Irvine for laboring here.” Continue reading
By Allan Bartlett (an Irvine Finance Commissioner)
If there were any lingering doubts about what happened the last ten years out at the Great Park in Irvine, GP CEO Mike Ellzey has laid those to rest. A 200 page deposition of Ellzey by city attorney Anthony Taylor was delivered today to Irvine City Hall in compliance with the California Public Records Act. The deposition is wide ranging and almost 200 pages long. It also includes a 29 page exhibit of a sworn declaration by Mr Ellzey. It details potential fraud perpetrated against Irvine citizens by Council Member Larry Agran and his complicit majority of Beth Krom and Suhkee Kang the likes of which are unprecedented in Orange County and I dare say the country.
I think what I will do to start is pull some quoted from Mr Ellzey’s declaration and add my comments.
“The consultant was telling the client what to do. The City was not treated like a client or owner, but more as a facilitator and expediter of projects determined by others. When I realized the depth and breadth of this culture, it concerned me greatly. Based on my experience managing large public projects, this practice was clearly unacceptable for a public agency”.(Page 3 & 4 of the declaration)
You can tell right away this is gonna get ugly Continue reading
Will Lynn Schott join her colleagues on the Irvine City Council this November?
Now that the Open Primary Election is over it is time to have a look at the upcoming November General Election. In Irvine, the November 4, 2014 Election will be held to elect a Mayor and two members of the City Council. The Irvine Mayor serves a term of two years, while City Councilmembers each serve a term of four years. The Mayor and City Councilmembers may serve no more than two full consecutive terms. The terms of the Councilmembers are staggered, according to the Irvine City Clerk.
Irvine Council Members Beth Krom and Christina Shea were elected in 2012. That means that this year Irvine Councilmen Jeff Lalloway and Larry Agran are up for re-election as is Irvine Mayor Steven Choi.
Mayor Choi should have no problem earning re-election given that his Council majority, which includes Lalloway and Shea, has done such a great job over the past two years. Since they took control of Irvine they stopped the ridiculous public relations contracts at the Great Park and have even been able to make headway on the city’s pension liability. Their success will make it very difficult for their opponents, Agran and Krom, to field much opposition in November. Continue reading
In the Left Angeles Times yesterday is Angels talk with developer about potential Irvine ballpark (outside any paywall here – we’re never sure when it’s working). Matt “Jerbal” Cunningham also picked up on it at his Anaheim Blog and offered this rubbish:
Now, if you’re a member of the torpedo-the-Angels-negotiations claque, clear your mind and repeat after me: The Angels have nowhere to go. The Angels have nowhere (sic), The Angels have nowhere to go.
Well apparently they DO. We wouldn’t doubt for a minute that Emil Haddad, the very smart and powerful developer of 4,606 homes at FivePoint Communities which borders the Great Park or the slippery Irvine Councilman Jeff Lalloway would jump at any lucrative arrangement which would bring the Angels to a new stadium at the property — to hell with the bankrupt and corrupt $220 million Great Park plan — there’s a lot of money to be made and this opportunity is a perfect solution for recovering the funds squandered by Larry Agran, Beth Krom and their cronies when they controlled the Park Board and Irvine City Council. What better way for Irvine to get itself out of the Great Park hole than by bringing a revenue-generator to town like an almost-contending Major League baseball team that has a six-year, $144.5M lock on Mike Trout, as well as two expensive, aging “superstars” in Albert Pujols and Josh Hamilton? Continue reading
“Irvine City Hall is absolutely packed with pissed off Vietnamese citizens,” according to Irvine Finance Commissioner Allan Bartlett, as posted on his Facebook page.
What happened? To make a long story short, Irvine Councilman Larry Agran completely stepped in it – he angered the entire Vietnamese community in Orange County. “More than 1,000 signatures were gathered by Vietnamese on-line petition against Agran adding Nha Trang a Vietnam city to Irvine’s friendship city plan,” according to Irvine Councilwoman Christina Shea’s blog. Continue reading
Melissa Fox, a local attorney who is running for the Irvine City Council, is holding a campaign reception on Thursday, April 10, 2014, from 5:30 to 7:30 pm, at the Caspian Restaurant, located at 14100 Culver Drive, in Irvine.
Fox, an ally of Irvine Council Members Larry Agran and Beth Krom, serves on the Irvine Community Services Commission. She ran for the 70th Assembly District in 2010, garnering 37.8% of the vote, as the Democratic Party’s nominee. She was soundly defeated by the Republican nominee, Don Wagner, who ended up with 58.2% of the vote, according to Smart Voter. Continue reading
Over the high-pitched squeals of Agran and his robotic council sidekick, Beth Krom, the new Irvine City Council majority ordered an independent audit to answer a question the Democratic political machine didn’t want answered: How did Agran spend more than $200 million in Great Park funds, but yet after more than eight years of alleged planning there was (and is) no park? (As reported by R. Scott Moxley at the OC Weekly).
Well now we know how Agran and Krom blew the Great Park money and it isn’t pretty. Continue reading
It would appear that liberal Irvine Councilman Larry Agran is up to his old tricks again. This time he stands accused of fomenting a petition drive to void the recent appointment of an Irvine School Board Member and force a special election.
Chris Nguyen, over at the OC Political Blog, did a great job of catching Agran, and his fellow liberal Beth Krom, in the act. Here is Nguyen’s accounting of what this sordid pair is up to now: Continue reading