Author: Roger Bloom

Earlier this month, the City of Irvine made a surprise move to redirect an imminent 540,000-square-foot warehouse development in the Irvine Business Complex to residential instead.

At the February 11th Council meeting, City Manager Oliver Chi reported that City staff had negotiated a deal with the developer to shelve the warehouse plan and instead begin obtaining permits for a residential development on the site.

On Friday, Tammy Kim withdrew her name as a candidate in the special City Council election in District 5, in the face of a lawsuit and an Orange County District Attorney investigation over allegations she lied about her residency in that district.

Shortly after Kim’s announcement, the court granted Scolesdang’s petition, removing Kim’s name from the ballot.

Tensions between the City of Irvine and the Orange County Power Authority (OCPA) boiled over this week, as the new City Council unanimously approved a measure threatening to withdraw from the agency.

Irvine Councilman James Mai made a motion to have the City draft a notice of intent to withdraw from the OCPA, but not send it until next year. His motion also included moving all of the City’s ratepayers into OCPA’s least expensive tier.

Former Irvine City Councilmember Tammy Kim has been accused of lying about being a resident of Irvine’s Council District 5 in order to run in the April 15th special election to fill that district’s Council seat. The Orange County Superior Court is now being asked to keep her name off the ballot.

On January 29th, Kim was served with a subpoena to appear in front of a judge on Monday, February 3rd at 8:30am. Ironically, it has been reported the process server found Kim at the District 3 condo that she owns but says she doesn’t live at.

Larry Agran has arguably had more to do with Irvine becoming a world-class city than any other person not named Donald Bren (the longtime chairman and sole owner of The Irvine Company).

In just the past two years, Agran was able to get: construction underway for a number of new resident-requested amenities at the Great Park; the replacement of a dangerous asphalt plant with a new 700-acre nature preserve; and the downsizing of a proposed outdoor amphitheater at the Great Park from a massive Hollywood Bowl-sized venue to a more appropriate Greek Theater-sized amphitheater.