Irvine Community News & Views takes this opportunity to underscore our Election 2016 endorsement of Mary Ann Gaido for Mayor of Irvine.
For the past four years, FivePoint Communities and other big developers have been in control of the Mayor and Irvine City Council. And now, our once-beautiful and beautifully-planned City is beset with overdevelopment, horrible traffic, and overcrowded schools.
Only one candidate for Mayor, Mary Ann Gaido, has had the courage to sound the alarm and say NO to thousands of new houses and apartments approved in the recent orgy of overdevelopment. As a long-time Planning Commissioner and former two-term City Councilwoman, Gaido promises to present a Comprehensive Growth and Traffic Control Ordinance to quickly restore Council and citizen control over our planning process.
Known as Irvine’s “Guardian of the General Plan,” Gaido will bring to the Mayor’s chair the strong, independent, pro-resident leadership our City desperately needs.
After 16 years of public service, popular Irvine City Councilwoman Beth Krom is not seeking re-election this November. The race for her “open” seat has attracted 11 candidates, a number of them quite good. But one clearly stands out — business lawyer and Irvine Community Services Commissioner Melissa Fox.
Fox, who fell just 210 votes short of winning a City Council seat in 2014, agrees with Gaido in her approach to controlling residential growth and development. But, she also brings special insights regarding parks and recreation, municipal services, and support for Irvine’s small businesses.
Since Irvine voters will have two votes for City Council (the scandal-plagued Christina Shea is up for re-election), we urge you to consider casting your second Council vote for one of the other good candidates in the field — Farrah Khan, Shiva Farivar, or Anila Ali.
Now, to the ABCs…the Anybody But Candidates. Running as a “team,” Mayoral candidate Don Wagner, and Council candidates Christina Shea and Anthony Kuo definitely belong in the Anybody But [these] Candidates category. Their slavish obedience to developers, especially developer FivePoint Communities, is an embarrassment. And, it has proven dangerous to our City and our future. Just look at the traffic mess!
Wagner, Shea and Kuo give the developers everything they ask for… and more. The result? Overdevelopment. And now, we can see the ultimate corruption — the Wagner, Shea, and Kuo team has “outsourced” their election campaigns to developer FivePoint Communities, with indications that the developer will spend many hundreds of thousands of dollars to elect the trio. If voters allow that to happen, Irvine will be irreparably damaged.
Publisher & Editor
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