Subject: Steven Choi

• Irvine Wants Communist $$$ for the Great Park?

  The controversy surrounding Irvine's new "Sister City" relationship with Communist officials in Shanghai and the bizarre snub of democratic Taiwan began with numerous "irregularies," including breaches of protocol, "odd" outside influences and possible "deliberate deception," according to a June 21 memo obtained by the Weekly. Written by Sister Cities Foundation president James E. Dunning, the three-page document outlines how Henry King, the Shanghai-native husband of Councilman Larry Agran'

  June 25, 2006

• 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

• What's Bad for Obama is Good for Todd Gallinger?

  Irvine City Council races have a long, rich history of generating critical looks from the county grand jury, tireless political reformer Shirley Grindle, state Assemblyman Chuck Devore (R-Irvine), solidly Democrat UC Irvine political science professor Mark Petracca and, of course, our own R. Scott Moxley thanks to the shameful schemes of the Larry Agran slate. But never before has the Irvine race veered into presidential politics – even more specifically, tonight's debate between Barack Obama

  October 15, 2008

• 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

• Irvine Candidate Forum, Part 2

  The mayoral candidates are covered in the previous post. Here are the council candidates: Eric Johnson: Run the city like a business. Build Great Park like a business, incrementally, so it pays for itself. More transparency and open meetings. While saying Gallinger's right to practice the Muslim faith and be tied to CAIR must be protected, he believes the right of a candidate to voice concerns about that should be protected as well. (Choi made this a campaign issue at a previous forum.) Agran's

  October 21, 2008

• Pin the $285,560 on the Non-Fundraising Fundraiser

  Steven Choi: unsatisfied Down four members, the Orange County Great Park Corporation Board of Directors voted 4-1 today to recommend the Irvine City Council spend $285,560 for a private fundraising consultant. That's for one year, and the chosen firm is not expected to actually raise any funds during those 12 months. Instead, Chora, LLC will create a list of 100 potential funders who'd chip in for the $22 million the corporation hopes to raise for new amenities around the Great Park's 27.5-ac

  October 23, 2008

• Who is Down on Measure R (and How Much Are They Down For)?

  Shea and Choi: big anti-R funders Measure R on the Irvine ballot asks residents to approve what a great job the Irvine City Council is doing on planning the Great Park on the old El Toro Marine Corps base (or if the measure loses, one supposes, what a piss-poor job they are doing). The conflict-of-interest-laden gusher of money flowing into the campaign for the measure has been examined here and here and to a much more comprehensive extent here and for the must-read historical perspective, righ

  October 31, 2008

• Twisted Sister City

  June 29, 2006

• More Blast From the Past Fraud Allegations in Irvine Election

  This examines a fraud case from the past involving a big donor to, ironically enough, Irvine Citizens for Ethics in Government, the independent committee against Irvine's Measure R, which asks residents to give a vote of approval to the Irvine City Council's planning of the Great Park on the old El Toro Marine Corps base. This tells you about how more than half of Irvine Citizens for Ethics in Government's funding comes from contributions and loans from the various campaigns of and independent

  November 3, 2008

• You Read the Irvine Election Results Here First

  Kang, Krom and Agran: staying put. Allow me to take you way, way, way back in time to last Thursday, Oct. 30, when the following was posted here (and it was in the print edition that hit the streets that day, too): [Irvine mayoral candidate Christina] Shea and fellow incumbent Sukhee Kang are the only candidates for the two-year mayor’s seat. Whoever loses still has two years remaining on his or her council seat. Among the candidates for two open, four-year council seats are outgoing Mayor B

  November 5, 2008

• Great Park's Hired Design Reviewers Get Another $2 Mil to Add to Their Previous $2 Mil

  "Um, yeah, that's not gonna work for me." The city of Irvine is paying a private company at least $400 million to design the Great Park. It has set aside $9 million for city staff and an independent company to check the Great Park Design Studio's plans to make sure they more quickly clear future city design reviews. Now the City Council will be asked to dole out another $1.9 million to compensate the program manager, Bovis Lend Lease, for essentially looking over the shoulders of designers in r

  November 20, 2008

• Auto Industry's Demise is Orange County Great Park's Gain

  No one is buying cars in this country. That means new cars aren't leaving dealer lots. That means U.S. ports are getting backed up with cars that, at least temporarily, have no place to go. And that means ships bringing these cars into those ports are getting backed up as well.Gee, if only there was a huge expanse of land around here where nearly nothing will be going on for the next several months so these autos could be held in the short term?Well, wouldn't you know it, but there is this forme

  December 18, 2008

• Great Park to World: Crisis? What Global Economic Crisis?

  You'd think the dotcom crisis was just a bad dream, the housing bubble never burst and we'd mysteriously been time traveled back to the halcyon days of the Clinton economy considering the bullish way the Orange County Great Park Corporation is pushing the financial envelope.   With three of its nine members missing, including constant budget nag Christina Shea, the taxpayer-supported corporation's Board of Directors unanimously approved year-end budget adjustments

  December 22, 2008

• 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

• Agran Reelected Great Park Corp. Board Chairman

  The Great Park Corp. Board of Directors this morning unanimously reelected director Michael Pinto to another four-year term and then reelected the Laguna Canyon Foundation founder their vice chairman. It was initially announced to be a straight flush, with the unanimous reelection of Irvine City Councilman Larry Agran (pictured) as chairman. But board clerk Steve Larsen misspoke when he said the vote was 7-0; Councilman Steven Choi had actually voted no. There was also confusion over whether Agr

  February 19, 2009

• Will Obama's Stimulus Plan Help Make the OC Great Park a Reality?

  Calling the action "momentous," the Great Park Corp. Board of Directors voted unanimously today to recommend the Irvine City Council adopt the Great Park Design Studio's Comprehensive Park Plan, the final planning piece required before the building phase can begin--as soon as March 20--on the ambitious, mixed-use park on 1,350 acres of the former El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.Now all the directors have to do is figure out how to pay for it.To that end, director Miguel Pulido, who is Santa Ana

  February 19, 2009

• Three Local Elections Worth Watching. Call It Morbid Fascination

  October 30, 2008

• Update: Agran's Pork Probed

  January 19, 2006

• Agranistas Fire Ordinance

  December 15, 2005

• Criticize Larry Agran, Go to Jail

  September 22, 2005

• During Brain Surgery, Keep Your Eye on the Ball, You Cockroach

  July 21, 2005

• Great Park With All the Fixins

  June 23, 2005

• O, America . . .

  Reflections on Election Day, 2004

  November 4, 2004

• AGRAN AGAIN!

  November 4, 2004

• A Boy Named Sue

  October 21, 2004

• 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

• "Press Conference" Against Iran Government Produces No News, Much Political Support in Irvine

  Rep. Laura Richardson (inset), Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Rep. Ed Royce, together at last.If the goal of a press conference is to produce a "big announcement" that makes news and warrants coverage--the usual reason one calls a press conference in the first place--then the Iran Supporters Network failed Friday evening at Irvine City Hall. But if the idea was to bring local politicians, community leaders and the Iranian American community together, engage in some spirited preach

  August 10, 2009

• Park Place Owners Have a Rocky History in Irvine

  Maguire had this office tower built at Park Place in 2006.​Maguire Properties' announcement today that it has sold its Park Place I office property in Irvine is just the latest twist for a massive campus that seems to have been dogged by controversy since the Los Angeles-based developer acquired it five years ago.To get a sense for this, just follow this timeline.June 1999: After more than two decades as the most visible tenant at the futuristic, distinctive green-glass, 1.7 million-squa

  August 12, 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