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 Agran could vote for the chairmanships. (He said he could, so that settled that.) Amid the chaos, Councilwoman Beth Krom joked to Agran, “You're not getting off to a very good start.”
“The vice chairman got more votes than I did,” Agran joked back. “Politicians pay attention to those things.”
Conceding the vote may not have gone as smoothly as it should have, Agran thanked his colleagues “for their continuing steadfast commitment” to the board, which is composed of all members of the Irvine City Council and other local dignitaries who make recommendations to the council regarding the funding, design and production of a nearly 1,350-acre, multi-use park within the former El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.