For years, Irvine residents have overwhelmingly supported building a Veterans Memorial Park & Cemetery at the 125-acre “ARDA” site on the former El Toro Marine Corps Air Station at the Great Park.

And, for years, unelected Mayor Christina Shea has been relentlessly scheming with land developer FivePoint to delay, derail, and defeat the Veterans Cemetery.

On Wednesday (April 29th), the Orange County Registrar of Voters notified the City of Irvine that the Build the Great Park Veterans Cemetery initiative has qualified for the November 2020 ballot.

For the past two months, medical and scientific experts have repeatedly warned elected officials that they must implement a comprehensive testing and contact-tracing program in order for cities to safely reopen.

So, why did elected officials in Orange County — and here in Irvine — spend March and April doing so little testing (and virtually no contact-tracing) while our neighboring counties were busy ramping up their testing programs and implementing contact-tracing systems?

The number of reported COVID-19 cases here in Irvine and across Orange County appears low. However, the numbers do not tell the full story because Orange County is doing far less testing than nearby counties.

Orange County has tested about 0.95% of the population. By comparison, San Diego County has tested 1.6% of the County population, and Riverside County has tested 2.1%.

Just days before the first cases of the coronavirus pandemic began to hit California, hundreds of Irvine volunteers completed their remarkable six-month effort to gather thousands of Irvine voter signatures on petitions in support of the “Build the Great Park Veterans Cemetery” initiative.

Instead of respecting this monumental citizen Initiative effort, Irvine Mayor Christina Shea went out of her way to attack and undermine the initiative petitioners.