Author: Roger Bloom

For eight hours on July 26th, the Irvine City Council sparred over several critical issues that likely will dominate the November City elections. The battle lines were clearly drawn.

Agran is running for re-election in November, as is Councilmember Anthony Kuo, who sided with others at the dais to vote against each of Agran’s proposals.

North Irvine residents turned out in force on July 12th, pleading with the City Council through nearly three hours of public comments to take action against the All American Asphalt plant that for years has been blanketing their neighborhoods with foul odors and insidious airborne carcinogens. They were rewarded with a four-pronged measure introduced by Councilmember Larry Agran and passed 5-0 after much discussion.

“It’s an urgent situation,” said Agran, who has repeatedly over the past 18 months tried to get the Council to take up the issue in public but to no avail because none of the other four Councilmembers would support his requests until now. “I regard AAA as a bad actor … behaving in a way that endangers our community. This plant is emitting huge quantities of benzene, formaldehyde, VOCs (volatile organic compounds), you name it.”

The Orange County Power Authority (OCPA) was created by a vote of the previous Irvine City Council at the urging of then-Councilmember and now-Mayor Farrah Khan and Councilmember Mike Carroll. Irvine agreed to loan the new public agency $7.7 million in City funds to pay for start-up costs and to underwrite a line of credit from Union Bank for another $35 million to cover operations until OCPA could begin providing electricity to Irvine customers and collecting revenue. (No other member-City was asked to contribute.)

In January 2022, OCPA released the rates it would be charging when it rolled out power service this year. Contrary to earlier promises, those rates were equal to or higher than SCE’s. At its June 29th meeting, the OCPA board approved a 2022-23 budget that includes even higher electricity rates for businesses and residents in January 2023.

During a special meeting on Tuesday (June 14th), the Irvine City Council voted to initiate an audit of the embattled Orange County Power Authority (OCPA), as pressure mounted from other cities in the Power Authority for a housecleaning of OCPA’s executive management.

Four hours after Irvine’s action, the City Council of OCPA-member Huntington Beach voted to support Irvine’s audit and also passed a motion of no-confidence in the Power Authority’s CEO, Brian Probolsky. Those votes were 5-0 and 4-1, respectively, with two members absent.

Melahat Rafiei, a prominent Democratic Party official and political consultant who is a close confidante of Irvine Mayor Farrah Khan, was arrested in 2019 for allegedly trying to bribe two Irvine City Councilmembers, court documents recently revealed.

Mayor Khan’s re-election campaign this year is being run by Progressive Solutions, and Rafiei’s colleague in the firm, Cory Allen, is Khan’s 2022 campaign manager. Allen was also hired by Khan in September to be her Chief Executive Assistant, a City-paid position, raising ethical concerns.