Year: 2022

California State Senator Tom Umberg has announced that — at the request of six members of the Orange County State Legislative Delegation — the Joint Legislative Audit Committee (JLAC) has agreed to conduct an emergency audit of the Orange County Power Authority (OCPA).

Senator Umberg issued the following statement: “It’s clear that OCPA has had little oversight. With the federal investigations in Anaheim and Irvine concerning public corruption, we owe it to the taxpayers to explain why their energy costs are going up — and who or what is responsible.”

Just days before ballots were mailed out, Irvine voters received political hit pieces in their mailboxes — funded by a Political Action Committee (PAC) established last week with tens of thousands of dollars in difficult-to-trace “dark money.” The PAC was created explicitly to attack Councilman Larry Agran.

Mayor Khan and her hand-picked Vice Mayor, Anthony Kuo (who is running for re-election against Agran) appear to be teaming up to spread lies about Agran’s record and his positions on the key issues in the November 8th election.

While much of the news in recent years has focused on the erosion of democratic norms and values at the national level, here in Irvine we’ve also witnessed an extraordinary assault on democracy by Mayor Farrah Khan and her appointed Vice Mayor, Anthony Kuo, who are now running together for re-election to the Irvine City Council.

Khan and Kuo also sought to stifle the public’s right to participate in local democratic government by pushing the public comment part of each City Council meeting to the very end of the meeting, often well past 10pm. After months of public outcry, Khan and Kuo backed off and allowed citizen comments to be made earlier during each meeting. However, they cut the time limit for each speaker from 3 minutes to a measly 90 seconds and instructed the City Attorney to interrupt speakers who stray, even slightly, off topic. So much for the First Amendment!

During a contentious marathon meeting on September 27th, the Irvine City Council approved two controversial long-term contracts for facilities to be built in the Great Park.

The actions came despite objections from residents that the agreements and supporting information totaling more than 600 pages were made public just a week before the Council meeting and were being pushed through without public review or input by the City’s Finance Commission, Planning Commission or Transportation Commission.