Author: Franklin J. Lunding

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!

When Mayor Farrah Khan, her appointed Vice Mayor Anthony Kuo and Councilman Mike Carroll established the Orange County Power Authority (OCPA) using millions of Irvine taxpayer dollars, they promised residents that we would be receiving greener energy at a lower monthly rate than what is provided by Southern California Edison (SCE).

We now know those were all flat-out lies. In fact, the City’s own electricity use was transferred over to OCPA this past April, and the City is now spending $100,000 per month more for electricity — paid for with Irvine taxpayer dollars!

On Tuesday (September 27th), Mayor Khan and Vice Mayor Kuo are set to push through several huge development projects at the Great Park. Khan and Kuo want the Council to approve these projects, which will cost Irvine taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, even though there has been zero input from the City’s Planning Commission, Transportation Commission, or Finance Commission.

Khan and Kuo’s so-called Framework Plan for the Great Park includes hundreds of millions of dollars in new projects: a 15,000-seat outdoor amphitheater run by Live Nation; a water polo facility; and a huge botanical garden that will replace the voter-approved Veterans Memorial Park. (The City has been warned of a potential lawsuit for willfully ignoring Irvine voters — and Irvine’s own City law — by refusing to build the Veterans Memorial Park.)

After breaking a number of campaign promises she made to voters back in 2020, embattled Irvine Mayor Farrah Khan appears to be headed for a tough re-election campaign.

With local Democrats fleeing, Khan appears to be teaming up with her Republican Council colleague Anthony Kuo. Kuo and Khan — who are aligned on all of the major issues facing our City — have been out in the community over the past few months, posting “selfies” on their social media accounts.

Mayor Farrah Khan and Vice Mayor Anthony Kuo — joined by Councilmembers Tammy Kim & Mike Carroll — have taken a first step in adopting a Great Park “framework” development plan, despite numerous unanswered questions regarding cost, traffic, noise and other concerns associated with the proposed construction projects.

The super-sized botanical garden is about the same size as Huntington Gardens in Pasadena that attracts 800,000 visitors annually. How will Irvine handle that kind of traffic every weekend? And, where are these out-of-town visitors going to park? Who is going to pay the hundreds of millions of dollars to build a botanical garden? And, who is going to pay the tens of millions of dollars in annual maintenance fees?