In addition to dealing with the latest surge in COVID cases, there are three important issues that the Irvine City Council should address in the first 100 days of 2022: All American Asphalt Plant, the Veterans Memorial Park, and the Orange County Power Authority.
Irvine native Ethan Chu — a recent graduate of Orange County School of the Arts — has been named a YoungArts Finalist in Film.
On January 10th, the OC Health Care Agency reported a staggering 22,945 new cases of COVID-19 for the day; and 964 patients hospitalized with COVID-19. (87% of those hospitalized are unvaccinated.)
In just over three weeks, there have been 79,423 new cases of COVID-19 reported in Orange County and 62 more residents in the County have died from this horrible virus.
During the same time period, there have been 7,710 new cases of COVID-19 reported here in Irvine, and we have lost another neighbor to the virus.
As the 1990s came to a close, the City found itself in a very difficult — but ultimately successful — battle to preserve our City’s quality of life when the Orange County Board of Supervisors decided they wanted to build a huge, noisy international airport in what is now north Irvine. The proposed flight paths of the 747s would have gone directly over Irvine 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Anyone who lived in Irvine during that time knows how instrumental Irvine Mayor Larry Agran was in defeating that airport.
The next two Irvine Mayors — Beth Krom & Sukhee Kang were also dynamic leaders. Mayor Krom expanded affordable housing, controlled growth, and tripled our City’s “Rainy Day Reserves.” Mayor Kang is responsible for our City’s iShuttle service and ensuring that every child in Irvine had health insurance.
The Great Park ARDA site makes up about 10% of the land that was transferred to the City of Irvine from the U.S. Government when the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station was decommissioned after nearly 60 years of operations.
The ARDA site is also a very valuable piece of land that developer FivePoint has long coveted for massive office, industrial, and commercial projects.
Councilmember Larry Agran has a plan for how the City can preserve the ARDA site forever … and add a beautiful new amenity to the Great Park. Agran is proposing that the City begin building a Veterans Memorial Park on the ARDA site — a vast park filled with trees, trails, and memorial gardens that honor our City’s rich military history and our veterans.
