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The Orange Juice Blog has come into possession of the official ballot rebuttal against the Agranistas’ Veterans Cemetery-delaying propaganda, and since this happens to be the same day that Chemical Lewinsky’s slanderous “Liberal OC” sputtered back to life, we thought we would print it:
“Argument Against Adoption of Ordinance No. 17-08 Rebuttal”
For the first time in decades, on June 5th Irvine voters will decide on the future growth and development of our City.
THIS IS NOT A CEMETERY SITE SELECTION VOTE
“Your NO vote on Measure X will STOP three Irvine City Councilmembers from giving away – to giant developer FivePoint Communities – the 125-acre site in the Great Park that our City dedicated four years ago for creation of a peaceful, beautiful Veterans Cemetery.
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This is an exchange of nearby equal 125-acre parcels of the former MCAS El Toro approved by due process and vote of council. Nothing is being “given away,” this is not a “gift” or “land grab.”
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Your NO vote on Measure X will also STOP accompanying zone changes that permit FivePoint to build 812,000 square feet of massive office, commercial, manufacturing and industrial development in the Great Park, adding more than 8,000 car and truck trips every day on Irvine Boulevard, Sand Canyon, Jeffrey, and throughout Irvine.
17-08 will move only existing pre-approved entitlements, adding nothing more. By the terms of the “Amended and Restated Development Agreement,” the city may develop hotels and related retail on the “ARDA” after December of 2017, so development on the ARDA site is now thus inevitable.
Your NO vote on Measure X will make sure the Southern California Veterans Cemetery is built in the Great Park, as planned designed and approved by the City of Irvine, CalVet, and the US Department of Veterans Affairs. The project has been “construction-ready” for a year.
Both 125-acre parcels are on the periphery of, but not in the Great Park. No Veterans Cemetery – none appears on any city-published Great Park map – has “been planned, designed and approved” in the Great Park or on ARDA by any entity or agency. The AB 1453 OWEN report and FY2017 VA grant priority list are NOT approvals, only steps in the process. If the site was “‘construction-ready’ for a year,” why then was nothing progressing?
Most important: Your NO vote on Measure X paves the way for Councilmembers Jeff Lalloway and Lynn Schott to re-introduce their resolution to immediately commence construction of the Veterans Cemetery within the Great Park, as originally planned and promised. Once built, the Veterans Cemetery will be operated and maintained in perpetuity by the State, at no cost to the City.
There exists no “originally planned and promised” path or funding for construction of a Veterans Cemetery on ARDA that has been stated by council opposition minority members Lalloway and Schott or offered by Ed Pope of “Save the [mythical] Veterans Cemetery in the Great Park.” NOTHING! A NO vote dooms the Southern California Veterans Cemetery.
Voter beware! Measure X, drafted for FivePoint’s benefit by three pro-developer Councilmembers, will move the planned Veterans Cemetery three miles away – to FivePoint’s deceptively named “Strawberry Fields” site – at the I-405 and I-5 interchange, one of the busiest, most congested and polluted stretches of freeway in the nation.
Strawberry Field – as named by Gov. Jerry Brown – Southern California Veterans Cemetery has strong bipartisan support at city, county state and federal levels. This tax-saving agreement is a win-win for our communities and schools, is favored by environmental and Veteran organizations, and is truly shovel-ready as is. Strawberry Field Southern California Veterans Cemetery will become a prominent monument viewed by thousands daily, a place of honored rest for our Veterans, a landmark that will be a credit and source of glowing pride to the City of Irvine.
Please join with your 19,164 Irvine neighbors who signed the Referendum Petition that gives you the opportunity to Vote NO on Measure X.
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Your YES vote for 17-08, for our Veterans, for Irvine, for the right thing to do.
Thanks for this, Vern.
I’ve been on record here over the years as being willing to give Larry Agran the benefit of the doubt on the Great Park was that he was a visionary who was duped by duplicitous advisors whose main concern was siphoning as much public money as possible into their own pockets.
I can no longer give Agran the benefit of any such doubt. He’s power-mad and thirsty for revenge — and he doesn’t give a damn that, especially under Trump, Five Point could probably find any number of ways to block the ARDA site and prevent any Veterans’ Cemetery from being built at all.
He just doesn’t care, so long as his “enemies” don’t win. He’s not half — even a tenth — of the man I thought he was when I voted for him in the 1992 Illinois Presidential primary. Maybe he once was — but it no longer matters. He’s set his reputation on fire and nobody is left who is both able and willing to stamp it out.
Strawberry Fields is a better site than ARDA — and a more sure bet to be built — based on any measure other than slaking Agran’s thirst for revenge.
That’s just not a good enough reason for anyone not getting PAID by Agran to vote “NO” on the measure — and I remind those who are getting paid by him the vote is by secret ballot, so they can vote for veterans’ interests privately and mollify the sorry husk of the defeated visionary in public. (Just wink and we’ll know where you’re coming from.)
Congratulations.
Future tip: Anyone who spends $200,000,000 of public money and has little or nothing to show for it belongs in prison.
But, glad to see you’ve come around.
Boss Agran’s (our) problem was/is that he was the guy in charge all along and didn’t have clue about the practical realities of what he was about.
That would never have happened except that the County gave the land to Irvine where Agran always had control of two clueless puppets sitting next him.
It’s so amusing to hear his followers bleating about vindictive audits, and self-righteous squeals from Gafcon. The only issue that matters is that all that money produced a big orange balloon ride and a tsunami of revenue for Agran’s political cronies.
But, but, but … what about the USA’s SOLAR DECATHLON! An event that (after starting in 2002) occurs bientally beginninging in 2005, in 2011, 2013, and 2015, and in 2017 will take place in burble burble burble.
Solar Decathlon, the PR coup worth AT LEAST $200 million to Irvine! Check out {“irvine” “solar decathlon”} and you’ll see about 187,000 Google hits, compared to a mere 49,000 for {Irvine “Wholesome Choice”}. That’s almost four times as much Google presence as Irvine’s Wholesome Choice market! And everyone agrees that it was worth $50 million in public money to bring Wholesome Choice to Irvine! QED!
Agran’s cult followers are sprinkled throughout Irvine. Hopefully on June 5th, the passage of Measure B will be his proverbial Waterloo. His impact on local politics is non-existent as hr has become a pathetic spectacle. It’s nice to see a great example of bipartisan consensus and cooperation.
Thanks for your support, Greg and Vern. I will be voting Yes on B on June 5th.
*Dr. D., so glad to say we are at odds with you on this issue. The Great Bark has always been a huge boondoggle, political football and basis for contentious arguments going nowhere fast. OK, saying that and realizing that an International Airport at El Toro was really one of the dumbest ideas ever…..and that they probably should have just moved
General Aviation from John Wayne and left a nice little Regional Airport Footprint that
could serve as an Inter-Modal Transportation Center for a direct Rail Trail to Las Vegas… Well, those days are long gone….so we have to deal with the current realities. (1) The Great Bark still has a huge Super Fund Clean up Footprint that will require Billions of Dollars to clean up right. Those old drums of Aircraft Fuel, Oil, Fuel Additives and Solvents…….has totally polluted the ground water basin for that whole area. Who is going to pay for that clean up….NOW or in the Future? The Irvine City Council? Guess they could put a tax on white picket fences and a toll everytime someone opened their garages….maybe? (2) The Walter Ehlers War Memorial Cemetery (now named Kiss my sister on the Ear in the OC) needs to be located NOT in the Strawberry Fields where the traffic off University is already a nightmare – most of the time……but actually as the Larry of Agran has so denoted carefully – In the Great Bark where it was originally designed to go. The State of California has dedicated $30 Million dollars for that purpose,….but because of the Pension Shortfall……our CA Solons can’t figure a way
to actually fund any of it right now. The Cost of the Cemetery is about $78 Million dollars according to Scott Williams and The Freedom Vets. We believe that as well. Probably we could add another $15 to $20 million should it go over budget….conservatively. Who is going to pay for that? Tony Moisio? Donald Bren? Bill Lyon? Let’s get serious here folks and do the right thing……not letting petty jealousy or past grievances guide our thought processes. Try just doing the Right Thing…eh?
Not to be confused with the Strawberry Fields Golf Course (which often occurs) the Southern California Veterans Cemetery is known in state law as the ‘Bake Parkway Site’, located on 125 acres between the intersection of Alton – Muirlands/Barranca, Bake Parkway, and the 5 Fwy. An agricultural area generally producing strawberries, as Gov. Jerry Brown noted when he stated his preference during his site tour.
*Putting the Vet Cemetery on the moon is also a good choice. Low cost real estate and plenty of reasons why visiting the place will be expensive…and inconvenient.
You’re calling the Strawberry Fields location expensive and inconvenient to visit? I’m sorry that you guys seem to make no sense, just like when you talk about how we need Poseidon.
Would you prefer a site close to a major freeway junction and a train station, ‘Ships? Because I’d certainly favor that!
Thank you for this post.
For those wanting more information on the facts and politics of the long veterans cemetery fight in Irvine, and why Irvine voters should VOTE YES FOR VETERANS, please see Melissa Fox’s blog post:
https://melissafoxblog.com/2018/02/05/vote-yes-for-veterans-on-june-5/
Maybe this is the best place for this, since my wife is adamant that “The Content of Chemical Lewinsky’s Character” is not a worthy post to waste my time writing.
Here is Chmielewski’s Feb. 20 LibOC story attacking our embattled Democratic State Senator Josh Newman for his bill, SB 1394, which would ban paid signature gatherers for initiatives – Dan claims the bill is “self-serving” on Josh’s part since many of the signatures qualifying his recall were gained by lies that the measure would repeal the gas/car tax. http://www.theliberaloc.com/2018/02/20/newmans-bill-to-ban-paid-signature-gatherers-is-self-serving/
We note that supposed Democrat Chmielewski is the only Democratic writer attacking Josh as his recall election approaches, and nobody doubts that Dan’s real motivation is his residual bitterness that Josh is not his buddy, carpetbagging Agranista Sukhee Kang, whose clock Josh cleaned in the 2016 primary.
Perusal of Josh’s own column about his bill http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/california-forum/article203651909.html reveals more motivation for Dan’s bitterness – among the examples of abuse Josh includes are: “This past year, Irvine voters were deceived into signing a referendum petition to overturn the city’s decision to allow the building of a new veterans’ cemetery for Orange County. Signature gatherers were caught telling voters that if their efforts failed, the bodies of deceased veterans would be dug up and moved across town.”
(BTW it was nice, at Sharon Quirk-Silva’s Fullerton College town hall the other day, to hear OCEA’s Jennifer Muir come out so strongly in favor of the Strawberry Fields location for the Cemetery, further isolating the Chmielewski/Agran clique; also it seems pretty unlikely OCEA will be able to back Dan’s chum Jordan Brandman again given their support of the Disney living wage movement. But I digress…)
“Bodies of deceased veterans dug up and moved across town.” That’s Dan’s little Agranista clique, lying to Irvine voters to get sigs on Agran’s petty cemetery-delaying act of anti-5Point vengefulness. Nice, Dan.
Years before the Josh recall or the Vets Cemetery shenanigans, I’d been sick of hearing paid signature gatherers lie to hurried innocent voters about what an initiative would achieve, and we have too many of the things on our ballots, so at first glance I’m all for Josh’s bill. And all for Josh.
Yes, this was the Liberal OC thread where Michael Fox took issue with Dan for trashing Josh, and promptly one of Dan’s anonymous commenters started ridiculing Mike under the name “STAGE FOUR,” a hilarious reference to Mike’s cancer diagnosis. Dan kept those comments online until Mike raised hell about them, then reluctantly deleted them … although not without Dan first apparently threatening Mike with blackmail: “you do your share of hateful and awful commentary. Like I said Michael, I protect *everyone’s* anonymity. DON’T PUSH ME.”
Another Democrat on that thread criticizing Dan for trashing Josh was North OC Chair Jeff LeTourneau, which led to one of Dan’s favorite anonymous dirtbags “FRED” (probably HB rightwinger Chuck Johnson) joking of the gay Jeff: “Jeff does this mean you will show up and throw a hissy fit and lose your shit and go all “pro homo” when you see sig gathering you don’t like? Or are you too busy dreaming about man/boy relations with alcoholic/wifebeater Victor Valladares. Asking for a friend.” This comment is still up, because nobody has gone through the humiliating ritual of asking or threatening Dan to take it down; it’s just typical fare for his blog. Well, you won’t see anything like that over here!
The Content of Chemical Lewinsky’s Character.
We’ve heard from insider Dems who are mortified that Dan’s sewer of a blog passes as a Democratic outlet in this county, even after the termination of his “communications director” position in the DPOC. They would like to see a respectable Democrat blog here; “something like the Dem equivalent of Cunningham’s OCDaily.net” is the phrase they use.
I look in the mirror. No, I couldn’t do that. I’m too loyal to actual Democratic values to be a Loyal Party Man. On the other hand, Dan is neither.
Jeez, I keep telling you not to touch the pink toad. Donna was right, but didn’t go far enough. Don’t even bend down to look at it.
Measure B is no longer only about whether Orange County veterans will have the cemetery and memorial that they deserve on the grounds of the old El Toro Marine Base.
It has now also become about whether Irvine will allow the return to power of Larry Agran and his cult. For decades, Agran ran a one-man-rule operation in Irvine, made backroom deals with developers to the detriment of Irvine residents, and squandered hundreds of millions of dollars in an embarrassing excuse for a supposed Great Park. His authoritarian reign of terror and error has been well chronicled here on this blog and in the reporting of R. Scott Moxley at the OC Weekly. It is well-past time for it to come to an end.
If anyone needs additional reasons to vote Yes on B Measure, stopping the attempted return to power of Larry Agran is a compelling one.