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Author: Roger Bloom

Out of Town Committee Established to Support Tammy Kim’s Mayoral Campaign

A new committee to support Tammy Kim for mayor in the November election has filed with the state to begin accepting contributions.

The paperwork includes an address, phone number and treasurer from Imperial Beach in San Diego County.

Calling itself “Friends of Tammy Kim — a committee in support of Tammy Kim for Mayor 2024,” the committee’s paperwork lists Briana Bilbray as treasurer. Bilbray, the daughter of former Representative Brian Bilbray (R-Imperial Beach), is also known as Briana Baleskie. She has been treasurer for many campaigns and organizations, including Paul Gosar for Congress in Arizona, and a committee called “Build the Wall.”

The “principal” for the committee is listed as Jorge Oliveras, also with Baleskie’s office address.

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City Manager Proposes Plan to Keep Trash Trucks Off North Irvine Streets

Irvine officials believe they’ve come up with a way to get an increasing number of trash trucks off City streets in North Irvine: build a new street for the trucks to use instead.

Having closed the All American Asphalt plant last year, Irvine is now moving to head off what City Manager Oliver Chi called “one of the last quality-of-life issue in North Irvine”: increasing truck traffic to and from the Bowerman Landfill about a mile east of the 241 toll road along Bee Canyon Road.

The County is planning to phase out the Olinda Alpha Landfill in Brea starting next year, and the hundreds of trash trucks now topping off that facility will be diverted to the two remaining landfills in OC, the Prima Deshecha Landfill in San Juan Capistrano and Bowerman.

“Currently these trucks exit from the 405, 5, and 241 Freeways onto city streets to access the landfill,” Chi wrote in a report to the City Council.

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Council Reviews Cost Analysis Report for Veterans Cemetery

The Veterans Cemetery proposed for Gypsum Canyon in Anaheim is estimated to cost some $100 million more than the previously proposed site in Irvine’s Great Park, according to a City review of available public reports on the plans.

 
In January, Assemblymember Sharon Quirk-Silva and State Senator Tom Umberg released a report from the California Department of General Services estimating the direct costs of the Gypsum Canyon plan at $126 million. In an accompanying press release, Quirk-Silva invited public analysis of the report.

As part of the public analysis, Irvine Vice Mayor Larry Agran asked City staff to review the report and compare it with projected costs for development of the Great Park site, which was approved by the City’s voters in an election in 2018 and again in 2020 by the City Council when the Council adopted a citizen initiative that had garnered some 20,000 Irvine resident signatures.

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Vice Mayor Larry Agran Proposes a “Living Wage” for the City’s Lowest Paid Workers

During the June 11th City Council meeting, Vice Mayor Larry Agran proposed a pay increase for the City’s lowest-wage workers.

Many of the City’s workers who perform critical services — including childcare workers, maintenance workers, and seasonal park & recreation workers — currently earn about $16.50 an hour. Under Agran’s proposal, those workers would earn a “living wage” of $20 per hour.

Agran estimated the cost to the City for the pay raise to be between $200,000 and $300,000. That money would come from the City’s reserve fund, which currently stands at nearly $70 million — which is a very healthy 24% above the City’s annual operating budget.

Agran — who established the City’s reserve fund when he was previously Mayor — wants the fund to be drawn down to 21% or 22%, allowing for those dollars to be “invested in our workers and city services.”

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