Analysts from WalletHub examined 29 key indicators of happiness — ranging from the depression rate to the income-growth rate to average leisure time spent per day — among residents in more than 180 cities across the country.

The study found that the majority of Irvine residents have a remarkably positive mental state, good physical health, low divorce rate, longer life expectancy, strong social connections, high job satisfaction, and financial well-being.

Irvine was the only Southern California city to earn a spot in the Top Ten. (Fremont, San Jose, and San Francisco were also named among the 10 happiest cities in America.)

Now that deal, brokered by Vice Mayor Larry Agran with Council support, is on the verge of also putting hundreds of millions of dollars into the City’s coffers.

 
Last year’s deal had All American Asphalt agreeing to sell its North Irvine plant and property to the City. The City would then shut the plant down and use the site and adjacent City-owned parcels to create a 700-acre nature preserve.

The Irvine Company agreed to dedicate to the City a 70-acre parcel at Jeffrey Road and Portola Parkway zoned for residential development, which the City would then sell to developers to cover the cost of purchasing the plant.

 
The cost of the asphalt plant purchase and site cleanup was estimated at $330 million, and the sale of the residential property was estimated to just about cover that.

 
Now, a year later, the bids are in and the Council has accepted Brookfield Residential’s offer of $600-650 million for the land and development rights to what’s been dubbed Gateway Village.

This time, however, Councilmembers Tammy Kim and Kathleen Tresder bizarrely walked out to stymie discussion of two measures placed on the Council agenda by Treseder herself.

As has happened twice in the past two months, with Councilmmember Mike Carroll out sick, Mayor Farrah Khan had to adjourn the official Council meeting for lack of a quorum after Councilmembers Kim and Treseder abruptly left the meeting.

Mayor Khan and Vice Mayor Larry Agran, as they have done in the past, stayed on the dais for nearly 90 minutes listening to commenters who had waited all evening to speak, in an informal continuation of the meeting.

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.

The 2024 Mayoral race has been quietly underway for some time with two main candidates so far: Vice Mayor Larry Agran and Councilmember Tammy Kim.

Other candidates could enter the race — the filing deadline isn’t until August, more than four months from now. But Agran and Kim are likely to remain the leading contenders.

The two Mayoral candidates present a clear choice to the voters on many important City issues.