Subject: Local Politics

• Agran's Irvine Machine Gets Challenger

  A majority of Irvine voters are Republicans and yet for years Larry Agran's progressive political machine has controlled the mayor's office. It's a reality Republican city councilwoman Christina Shea hopes to shatter next year. This morning Shea announced that she will run for the job herself. Shea will face Agran's Sukhee Kang and whatever shell Republican campaign Agran also secretly sponsors to the divide GOP voters. Over the years, Shea has been the bee in Agran's bonnet, especially on et

  September 13, 2007

• Register, Times Slam Santa Ana Good--And a Challenge

  If there's one thing that Orange County Register editorial writer Steven Greenhut hates more than Sheriff Mike Carona, it's city-controlled urban planning, and he ripped SanTana officials a new one and then some yesterday in a piece blasting the city's much-ballyhooed Renaissance Specific Plan. Proponents say the Renaissance Plan will transform the city's downtown; opponents say the same, except use the word "gentrification." Greenhut, in one of his increasing moves to the Left, sides with the o

  December 24, 2007

• Time to Give Santa Ana's Mayor a Nickname!

  Today, bad-ass Los Angeles Times reporter Jennifer Delson writes about the idiotic Measure D, the SanTana ballot measure that would extend city council term limits from eight years to 12 years. She reveals that Measure D originally started as an attempt by residents and councilmembers to install term limits for the mayor's seat, but eventually devolved into another power-grab by loony SanTana councilmembers--scratch that. Let's turn it over to Jennifer: [Councilmember Sal] Tinajero said two rec

  January 9, 2008

• Santa Ana Officials Redraw Renaissance Plan Boundaries Again

  Today, Los Angeles Times SanTana reporter Jennifer Delson delivers a bombshell of a story on the city's Renaissance Plan: not only did city officials redraw the Renaissance Plan boundaries to omit the family businesses of councilmember Vince Sarmiento and Mayor Papi Pulido (as we reported last month), but they're planning to do it yet again to allow councilmember Michelle Martinez and planning commissioner Victoria Bentacourt to vote on the matter. Martinez is claiming SanTana officials are usin

  January 20, 2008

• Cypress Goes Cultist

  Cypress has followed Westminster's lead in officially embracing the occult. The Cypress City Council voted in a perplexing 2-1 majority to display "In God We Trust" in council chambers. Aww, poor Cypress - only three council members? Iddle biddle widdle council, so cute! Actually two council members abstained, claiming they didn't want to give views on religious matters. And yet they're willing to passively endorse the phrase? Cowards. The phrase is a reference to the fact that followers of th

  February 13, 2008

• Muffle Scuffle

  *Moved up, 'cause the conversation's fun! Irvine's reigning feet-to-the-fire holder Stephen C. Smith has a very interesting post on his IrvineTattler.com site. Here is an excerpt from “Sukhee Kang Knows Your Birth Date”: Councilman and mayoral candidate Sukhee Kang used a California Public Records Act (CPRA) request in August 2006 to obtain an estimated 90,000 records with personal information about Irvine voters, including birth dates, home addresses and e-mail addresses. The Irvine Tat

  August 3, 2008

• Santa Ana Now Officially Run by Lazy Mexicans

  *Updated, with new information on the bottom... As the largest city in Orange County, SanTana needs a more-committed city council than, say, Laguna Niguel. Unfortunately, the county seat is cursed with buffoons, a veritable clowncil, to use the term of Orange Juice! bomb-thrower Art Pedroza. We've documented the wackiness of Mayor Papi Pulido and councilmembers Busty Bustamante (pictured), Claudia Alvarez and David Benavides, and at least one of them is amongst the pendejos who are out of town

  August 2, 2008

• Up Against the Wal-Mart

  February 24, 2000

• Compromising Positions

  March 23, 2000

• 'Is it Hot in Here?'

  June 15, 2000

• Beer Hall Politics

  January 16, 2003

• Irvine Candidate Forum: Mostly Civil, Some Fireworks

  Irvine is either a city where the sun does nothing but shine, the streets are lined with gold and bad stuff never ever ever ever ever ever ever happens, or it's a swirling cesspool of cronyism, backroom deals and looming Muslim threats. That was the message voters were given as a busload of people running for Irvine City Council gathered in the council chambers tonight for a candidate forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters, whose Sharon Holdt served as moderator. Current council members

  October 21, 2008

• Can You Say Eminent Domain?

  November 13, 2003

• Mayor Obfuscate

  August 19, 2004

• Attorney Who Misspent Clients' $2.7 Million Was at Center of Irvine Election Controversies

  The Register's Greg Hardesty has the scoop on 38-year-old Irvine attorney Sandeep Baweja admitting to burning through nearly all of a $2.7-million settlement that was supposed to be shared by about 1,000 plaintiffs he represented in a class-action labor lawsuit.According to the story, Baweja played the dumb card, saying he invested the money in the stock market without knowing what he was doing, apologizing for his knuckleheaded conduct in papers filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles and r

  December 31, 2008

• Jerry, Be Wary

  January 31, 2008

• Lance MacLean Has Learned That Mission Viejo's Political Players Always Go for the Throat

  March 5, 2009

• Mission Viejo Councilwoman Cathy Schlicht Tries to Deliver, But Is Running Into an Opposing Majority

  January 29, 2009

• Surf City Mayor Debbie Cook Takes on Dana Rohrabacher, OC's Weirdest Republican Congressman

  September 18, 2008

• Humberto Caspa's New Book Chronicles the Fear and Loathing of Mexicans in Costa Mesa

  May 8, 2008

• Controversial Developer Robert Bisno Brings His Grease-a-Palm Politics to Santa Ana

  March 6, 2008

• Smiley Coyotl

  When is a prosecutor not a prosecutor? The answer spared a Santa Ana activist/punk rocker from criminal charges

  October 11, 2007

• Back up to Speed

  February 8, 2001

• Remote Hog

  June 1, 2006

• A Life Wasted

  May 11, 2006

• Agranistas Fire Ordinance

  December 15, 2005

• Criticize Larry Agran, Go to Jail

  September 22, 2005

• A Boy Named Sue

  October 21, 2004

• Agrans Tree People

  September 2, 2004

• Larry Agrans Power Trip

  Irvine mayors planned public utility could enrich a political pal

  August 5, 2004

• They Saved Paradise, Put Up With a Parking Lot

  June 24, 2004

• Deja You

  February 26, 2004

• Power Politics

  February 26, 2004

• Million-Dollar Munchikins

  October 16, 2003

• Pick the Next State Coastal Commissioner

  January 9, 2003

• Show Us Your Scars!

  March 15, 2001

• No More Mayor Nice Guy

  December 7, 2000

• The Great Park Is Coming Back

  December 7, 2000

• 31 Scariest People in OC

  November 2, 2000

• Uncle Sham

  July 6, 2000

• Glad to Meet Me

  April 13, 2000

• Opting Out

  March 2, 2000

• Wheres Geroge?

  December 23, 1999

• "How the System Works"

  December 9, 1999

• Bankruptcy? What Bankruptcy?!

  December 9, 1999

• Gang Bank

  December 2, 1999

• Bank of Argyros

  November 25, 1999

• As Stephen Smith Leaves Town, Irvine's "Tattler" Calls on Others to Step Up

  Stephen C. Smith calls on others to keep tabs on Irvine City Hall.CORRECTED!Lost in Santa Ana a few months ago, half paying attention to the street signs and half to Larry Mantle's KPCC interview show blaring out of the car speakers, I heard the host steer his Orange County "roundtable" guests--Orange County Register senior editorial writer Steven Greenhut; former LA Times religion writer William Lobdell and the Weekly's irrepressible Gustavo Arellano--into the topic of local bloggers. The three

  May 12, 2009

• Irvine Police Association Blasts Mayor Sukhee Kang, City Council Members Beth Krom and Larry Agran

  Irvine Police Association has criticized Mayor Sukhee Kang (left) and City Council members Beth Krom and Larry Agran over stalled contract talks.​Anyone who has attended a city-run meeting in Irvine has heard elected officials, especially City Councilman and Orange County Great Park Corporation chairman Larry Agran, boast about overseeing "America's safest city."Likewise, anyone who complains about the shady, back-room, ethically challenged way the city of Irvine is run, or the plastic, uninsp

  July 27, 2009

• Agran Crony and Gore Campaigner Agrees to Guilty Pleas in Federal Wire Fraud Case

  Irvine attorney Sandeep Baweja, the 39-year-old money man for that town's "progressive" political boss Larry Agran and a former official with Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign, agreed in court papers to plead guilty to two felony charges related to a scheme where he ripped off nearly all of the $2.7 million he'd previously won for his clients, the FBI announced today.In a plea agreement prosecutors filed late Thursday in United States District Court in Los Angeles, Baweja indicates he will pl

  October 2, 2009