From left: Councilmembers Treseder, Mai, and Go
Last June, the Irvine City Council unanimously voted to adopt the City’s proposed budget for the 2025-2026 fiscal year. Since that time, economic instability nationwide has sharply increased the cost of labor, contract equipment supplies, and health care services.
During the last Council meeting, Irvine City Manager Sean Crumby explained that rising costs, coupled with new Council programs, has resulted in a projected $6 million budget overage.
Mr. Crumby reassured the Council that Irvine continues to be in exceptionally strong financial shape. The projected $6 million overage amounts to just 2% of Irvine’s $300 million general fund budget; and the City is sitting on a $135 million reserve fund.
However, three Councilmembers — Kathleen Treseder, James Mai, and William Go — spent nearly an hour attacking Mr. Crumby and City staff for the overage.
These are the same three Councilmembers who have no problem wasting millions of Irvine taxpayer dollars by keeping us stuck in the corrupt, costly Orange County Power Authority (OCPA). In the last four years — including projections through the end of calendar year 2026 — OCPA has cost our City government and Irvine’s electricity customers (both residents and businesses) nearly $100 million in overcharges.
To add insult to injury, Councilmembers Treseder and Go recently teamed up to make sure that OCPA’s partial repayment of Irvine’s loan of $7.5 million will not be returned to the City’s general fund (where the $6 million overage is located). Instead, Treseder and Go are spending the money on a “mobility hub” for bikers.
For his part, Councilmember Mai — who claims to be a fiscal conservative — tried to get the Council to approve his plan to establish a permanent citywide flag display that would involve hiring full-time staff and cost the City millions of dollars. When that didn’t go his way, Mai requested $750,000 to stage a Fourth of July extravaganza.
Ironically, in the middle of the Council’s discussion on ways to save money, Kathleen Treseder proposed a “forensic audit” that would be funded by taxpayers. (The last time the City conducted a politically-motivated forensic audit, it cost Irvine taxpayers $1.7 million and failed to uncover any wrongdoing whatsoever.)
Obviously, any budget overage is a significant concern that warrants a thorough review by the City Finance Commission and the City Council — and all spending gaps must be resolved. But these three politicians are not the fiscal watchdogs they claim to be. Instead, they are spending millions of Irvine taxpayer dollars on their own vanity projects, and then blaming City staff when there is an overage.
- Publisher’s Perspective: Three Councilmembers Spend Millions While Attacking City Staff for a Budget Overage - April 26, 2026
- Irvine’s Impressive Environmental Leadership - April 22, 2026
- Looking Back on 2025, Looking Ahead to 2026 - January 10, 2026
