Category: Irvine

According to City staff, construction work should not impact Great Park neighborhoods, motorists, or the use of the Great Park sports fields.

The amenities being built in the area referred to as the “Heart of the Park” will include: an Amphitheater; the Full Circle Farm (a fully operational farm to grow fresh produce for local food banks and host farm-to-table events); the Great Meadow (a large open green space); two lakes; and the Grand Promenade (a 2-mile pedestrian walkway through the park between Cadence and the Irvine Train Station).

Those programs include: additional school resource officers and school nurses; an expansion of the successful school bus program that was launched last year for University High students living in Quail Hill; support for child care and after-school programs; and a raise for City workers making less than $20 per hour.

After praising Agran’s proposal in June and voting to support it, at the July 9th meeting Councilmember Tammy Kim reversed her support, characterized Agran’s proposal in apocalyptic terms as irresponsible, and insisted that the Council vote to keep the Contingency Fund unchanged.

The neighbors have received a letter letting them know of a plan to replace nine office buildings within the Von Karman Corporate Center — on the northeast corner of Von Karman and Alton Parkway close to their homes — with a 541,000-square-foot warehouse complex. (That’s about the size of four Costco stores under one roof.)

One of the affected residents who received the letter, Valer Cupsa, told KABC-TV News that the mega-warehouse would drastically change the aesthetics of the neighborhood.

Unbelievably, the answer is yes! It’s the oldest trick in the renewable energy bag, and it’s hidden on Orange County Power Authority’s (OCPA) Power Content Label, which is used to disguise reliance on filthy, fossil-fuel electricity generators (brown power).

This is unacceptable behavior considering Community Choice Energy (CCE) agencies like OCPA were created to outperform Southern California Edison (SCE) and eliminate fossil-fired power, not continue its hidden use behind technical definitions and euphemisms.

Through my work in Illinois and here in California, I have seen the way in which politicians get around campaign finance laws through the establishment of political action committees (PACs) funded with “dark money” to prop up their campaigns and attack their political opponents. I have also witnessed the damage these PACs can do to our local democracy.

That’s one of the reasons why I started this publication … because I believe in the importance of an informed electorate and the need to call out these dangerous dark money committees.

Recently, one of these PACs was established to support Tammy Kim’s mayoral campaign.

The Irvine City Council recently approved a pre-development agreement that should lead to the groundbreaking for the museum as early as next year.

A state-of-the-art 100,000 square foot museum is being built in the Cultural Terrace area of the Great Park, adjacent to the existing Sports Complex.

It will feature more than 40 aircraft as well as related artifacts and displays — including an ejection seat, radar, night vision and air traffic control exhibits. There will also be a science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education facility.

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.”

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.