Year: 2022

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.

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.

In 1990, the religious-right took aim at Irvine Mayor Larry Agran, who had authored and won approval for a comprehensive Human Rights Ordinance which was years ahead of other cities and the first of its kind in Orange County.

Two years later, Shea secured her own spot on the Council, joining three other newcomers. Just as the national recession set in, the inexperienced new Council made the fateful decision to invest $200 million of Irvine taxpayer money in Orange County’s investment pool. In 1994, the County made front-page news for all the wrong reasons — it became the largest county in America to ever file for bankruptcy. The City of Irvine had invested a whopping $200 million in the fund, far more than any other Orange County city.

The new year provides each of us with an opportunity to reflect on the past while looking toward a more hopeful future.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we began construction of this beautiful Veterans Memorial Park in the first half of 2022?

The 1980s was when our City leaders began to brand Irvine as one of America’s great “international crossroads” cities, welcoming immigrants from throughout the world. Policies were put into place during the late 1980s to make sure that Irvine would become one of the most diverse and thoroughly integrated cities in the United States.

In the late 1980s, City leaders successfully rallied Irvine voters to pass a ballot initiative that set aside 10,000 acres of beautiful wilderness for families to enjoy forever … and Irvine made international news when it became the first city on the planet to ban CFCs and other ozone-depleting chemicals.