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
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Jason Mills (714) 576-4303
Melissa Fox Files for Irvine City Council
IRVINE, CA Irvine Community Services Commissioner Melissa Fox announced today that she has officially filed for an open seat on the Irvine City Council and qualified for the ballot in the November 8th General Election.
“As a business owner, attorney and Irvine Community Services Commissioner,” Fox stated. “I understand the relationship between strong, pro-resident leadership and our quality of life. Our city needs a new vision for unsnarling our roads and creating better economic opportunities.” 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Irvine has officially repealed Larry Agran’s living wage ordinance 4 to 1, according to Irvine Finance Commissioner Allan Bartlett’s Facebook page.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
Irvine Councilmembers Jeff Lalloway and Christina Shea have just been handed a great opportunity to turn lemons into lemonade and prove that their city can actually run something like a business. With the Great Park debacle not taking any of the DA’s time but consuming headlines, reputations and, hopefully, Larry Agran’s re-election campaign (Beth Krom will not be running for Mayor), this hit last week on Irvine certainly wasn’t welcome:
Per the OC Register on 8/7: An Orange County Superior Court judge has ruled against the Orange County Fire Authority’s plan to return millions of dollars to cities that overpaid for firefighting service, dealing a blow to the agency’s efforts to appease communities that have threatened to leave the fire authority if they aren’t reimbursed. Judge William D. Claster’s ruling backs county leaders’ efforts to prevent the fire authority from paying millions to Irvine, Laguna Woods, Rancho Santa Margarita, San Juan Capistrano and the county, who for years have been overcharged for their fire services. The county argued that the proposed payments to the members would have amounted to a gift of public funds.
Irvine is the second largest of the 23 OC cities that take fire services from the OCFA (Santa Ana was financially pressured to outsource their operations to OCFA last year): 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