10% off entire order
Ladera Ranch, CA 92694
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 ... More >>
*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 Re ... More >>
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 M ... More >>
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 r ... More >>
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 fa ... More >>
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 dur ... More >>
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- ... More >>
Irvine shanghais Taiwan
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 ... More >>
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 ... More >>
"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 ci ... More >>
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 ... More >>
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. &nb ... More >>
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 ... More >>
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 Cou ... More >>
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 ambiti ... More >>
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 ambiti ... More >>
Grand jury eyes OC Great Park shenanigans
Proposed law takes aim at political consultants, advisers and the media
Irvine's Rules of Ethical and Open Governance would restrict criticism of politicians, passing of "GO", collection of $200
The Agran team responds to evidence of ethics problems with analogy, metaphor, psychoanalysis
Agran doling out pork at $441 per hour
Reflections on Election Day, 2004
Newport Beach, 12:14 a.m.
Irvine Mayor Agran attempts to muzzle his critics with legal threats
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--Oran ... More >>
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 Sup ... More >>
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 acqu ... More >>
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 $ ... More >>
Christopher VictorioDid Steven Choi embarrass Irvine? Dan Chmielewski at the LiberalOC.com blog today blasted Irvine Councilman and state Assembly candidate Steven Choi for pinning to his back a small poster depicting U.S. House of Representative Speaker Nancy Pelosi as Stalin, the brutal Russian ... More >>
Spencer Kornhaber / OC WeeklyA Wheel of Fortune joke? Really?That sign seems mean, right? Well, some people at today's tea party at the Irvine Auto Center agreed. They knew that scummy media types (ahem) would take pictures of it. So they made it go away.
Photo by Christopher VictorioDemocratic Assembly candidate Melissa Fox has a taxing idea.According to Melissa Fox, a Democratic Party candidate for Orange County's 70th Assembly District, the problem with California government isn't high taxes, a bloated bureaucracy or the massive $20 billion bud ... More >>
11:15 p.m.: Don't be surprised if KOCE is accused of turning over its election coverage to that rare Orange County bird known as the "Democrat." The "live, election night edition of Real Orange" came from the Artists Village in Santa Ana, OC's version of Havana. Their election expert was the Voic ... More >>
Christina Shea is not termed out as an Irvine City Council member until November, but she has given her first exit interview.If you expected the longtime City Hall fixture--who served as mayor from 1996 to 2000--to leave quietly, you obviously haven't been paying attention. Indeed, Shea lets slip ... More >>
Thanks to Larry Agran, a few people have gotten very rich from the county's proposed $1.2 billion, still-not-built park
Updated throughout the night, with the freshest post on topLate: Oy. Squeezed my way through the madness (good-looking madness) that was the OC Republican election night party in search of some Irvine players to chat with. No luck. Instead, I got to wander through a sea of boos when Presiden ... More >>
[Moxley Confidential] Are Republican insiders mad enough at Baugh to vote in an outsider to replace him?
EXCLUSIVE! Super-secret plans are afoot to name Orange County's largest public-works project after the Great Communicator
Irvine council members Sukhee Kang, Beth Krom and Larry AgranUPDATE, MAY 11, 9:54 A.M.: The proposal to ban sex offenders from Irvine city parks did not wow all council members Tuesday night. Mayor Sukhee Kang, Councilman Steven Choi and the councilman who brought the matter before the panel, Jef ... More >>
[Moxley Confidential] Recent interview inadvertently reveals the slimy side of Irvine's most powerful politician
UPDATE, JUNE 22, 10:09 A.M.: While expressing some concern the county pervs-in-parks ban is too broad, the San Juan Capistrano City Council did decide Tuesday night to bring a local ordinance back for a vote July 5.Among the options the city with huge swaths of open space will explore are applyin ... More >>
SparksDavid R. Sparks lavished the Republican Party and GOP candidates with thousands of dollars over the years. He was so well liked that when ultimate party insider Adam Probolsky was removed amid controversy from the Irvine Planning Commission, Probolsky praised his chosen replacement, Sparks, ... More >>
UPDATE, JULY 29, 9:41 A.M.: The Rancho Santa Margarita City Council voted Wednesday night to move ahead with a ban on registered sex offenders in city parks that is similar to the county law enacted in April.The council agreed that banning only those who have preyed on children would leave kids v ... More >>
UPDATE, AUG. 17, 11:17 A.M.: It's become so routine it's lost its news value: The District Attorney's office announces it's sending a rep before the latest of the 7,000 city councils in Orange County considering a ban on sex offenders in local parks modeled after the county law co-written by DA T ... More >>
www.irvinekoreanfestival.comDense in the head that I am, it still took me all of 3 seconds to realize how the City of Irvine came to host the Irvine Korean Cultural Festival tomorrow. Steven Choi, city councilman and a candidate for mayor, is also its founder. Why tomorrow? Well, because today, J ... More >>
Discover restaurants, nightlife, travel, shopping...
Get 50 to 90% off every day on restaurants, movies, massages...
More than 10,000 of the BEST things to eat, drink, and experience
Join the Village Voice community and get exclusive deals and info
Your local Happy Hour guide at your fingertips
Log in or Sign up
Social Connect:Use your favorite account to access My Voice Nation.
Use your My Voice Nation account to log in:
Sign Up or Log in
Social Connect:Sign up for My Voice Nation with your preferred network.
Sign up for a My Voice Nation account:
