NIMBY Greens, Larry Agran and Tom Choym

Larry Agran and Tom Choym left an election campaign flyer on my front door asking for my vote. Stapled to the flyer was a plastic bag (gasp!) containing six tree seeds for their “Forestation Program.” This will “help speed our City toward carbon-neutrality,” as Larry proposes.

“Larry opposes the latest developer scheme to jam 57,000 additional housing units in Irvine that would dump another 100,000 cars onto our City streets every day, resulting in more traffic, more potholes, more pollution … and a diminished quality of life for everyone.” (emphasis added)


Home prices are outrageously high and so are apartment rents. They can only come down by building more, not opposing more housing. Where are our children and grandchildren going to live, Larry? You don’t seem to care.


Now as to “more traffic, more potholes, more pollution… and a diminished quality of life,” the City mails all of us Inside Irvine Fall 2024, a four-color, 100-page magazine promoting more traffic, more potholes and more pollution by inviting everyone in Irvine to drive to hundreds of activities everywhere, burning hundreds of thousands of gallons of gasoline in comings and goings. Not to worry, those six seeds you plant will bring Irvine right down “toward carbon-neutrality,” right? Never mind that China and India are each building a new coal-fired plant a week, adding to the thousands they already have. Their emissions dwarf America’s emissions forever. The “carbon-neutral” crowd wants to spend trillions more dollars to accomplish nothing, except make Al Gore’s followers feel good about themselves. Thirty years of failed panic predictions have not deterred the green faithful like Larry and Tom.

"Tammy Kim knows that Irvine heeds to address housing." - Tammy Kim for Irvine Council flyer

Larry Agran and Tim Choym obviously do not care about you, your children and grandchildren being priced out of housing. Just plant your six tree seeds and that will take care of everything.

Larry Agran and Tom Choym want to "green Irvine" - what a joke!

Carbon Dioxide Fertilization Greening Earth, Study Finds

Quarter to half of Earth’s vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change on April 25.

An international team of 32 authors from 24 institutions in eight countries led the effort, which involved using satellite data from NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer instruments to help determine the leaf area index, or amount of leaf cover, over the planet’s vegetated regions. The greening represents an increase in leaves on plants and trees equivalent in area to two times the continental United States.

Democrats Larry Agran and Tom Choym almost certainly voted for Biden, and will almost certainly vote for Harris and Walz. Send both of them back home.

StarmanMBA said:

Larry Agran and Tom Choym want to "green Irvine" - what a joke!

Carbon Dioxide Fertilization Greening Earth, Study Finds

Quarter to half of Earth’s vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change on April 25.

An international team of 32 authors from 24 institutions in eight countries led the effort, which involved using satellite data from NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer instruments to help determine the leaf area index, or amount of leaf cover, over the planet’s vegetated regions. The greening represents an increase in leaves on plants and trees equivalent in area to two times the continental United States.

Carbon Dioxide Fertilization Greening Earth, Study Finds - NASA

From a quarter to half of Earth’s vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon

www.nasa.gov

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It’s MORE like TAMMY KIM and KATHLEEN TRESEDER who want to “green Irvine”. I mean, come on, they both sit on the OCPA, whereas Larry Agran calls it a scam, and rightfully so. UCI Professor, if you can call Treseder that, says just by the flick of a switch, the OCPA can have 100% renewable energy flowing into your home or business. Kathleen Treseder goes on to say, how nice would that be, you wouldn’t have to worry about buying solar panels! Perhaps you should send your article to the UCI Professor who claims she studies climate change?

StarmanMBA said:

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Democrats Larry Agran and Tom Choym almost certainly voted for Biden, and will almost certainly vote for Harris and Walz. Send both of them back home.

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Uh, okay, and you know this, how? Because TAMMY KIM has said she supports Kamala Harris, AND she also supported Bernie Sanders! So, why are you picking on Larry Agran so much, and with statements that you haven’t even confirmed?

Another example, as I replied to your other comment about climate change, when Tammy Kim sits on the board of the OCPA, and Larry wants the City of Irvine to get out from under this scam. Did you know the taxpayers are footing an extra $100,000 more a MONTH for the city’s electric bill? Tammy Kim has the default for the whole city at the most expensive plan, and residents and businesses are not even getting cleaner energy than SCE. And why is this? Because SCE delivers our power, OCPA is just a shell company that buys and SELLS power with ratepayer funds, and makes a profit off of them.

Tammy Kim supports everything that your cartoon of Kamala is holding up! She has stated that she believes “migrants” coming in to our state should have the ability to be able to vote, without a California ID card!

Please don't vote for Agran. Never forget how he wasted $200M of our tax dollars!

iacrenter said:

Please don't vote for Agran. Never forget how he wasted $200M of our tax dollars!

Final Great Park audit report cites mismanagement, financial waste

The final Great Park audit report concludes that the project was rife with mismanagement and budgetary irresponsibility, leading to significant waste of tens of millions of dollars among the more than $200 million spent between 2005 and 2012.

www.latimes.com

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How about you disclose the REAL truth about this scandal that came out a few years later when Vice-Mayor Larry Agran cleared his name? The Great Park funds were all accounted for, and the firm that did the bogus Audit, lost their license to practice. If you are going to post something, please, at least do your research. I remember this whole scandal like it was yesterday. Tammy Kim keeps trying to bring this back, but the people that were around during that time, remember very well what happened.

Irvine Homeowner said:

How about you disclose the REAL truth about this scandal that came out a few years later when Vice-Mayor Larry Agran cleared his name? The Great Park funds were all accounted for, and the firm that did the bogus Audit, lost their license to practice. If you are going to post something, please, at least do your research. I remember this whole scandal like it was yesterday. Tammy Kim keeps trying to bring this back, but the people that were around during that time, remember very well what happened.

https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=a786d8e0f23b8790f21ae5e54d0b7994bdc68bab57996cf857535d7e1611cc1fJmltdHM9MTczMDE2MDAwMA&ptn=3&ver=2&hsh=4&fclid=2876da68-42ad-6c19-3e14-cf4043436de0&psq=grand+jury+audit+on+the+irvine+great+park&u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly92b2ljZW9mb2Mub3JnLzIwMjAvMDEvZm9ybWVyLWdyZWF0LXBhcmstYXVkaXRvci1zdXJyZW5kZXJzLWFjY291bnRpbmctbGljZW5zZS8&ntb=1

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That article does not clear his name. Taxpayers were out hundreds of millions of dollars, and we had no park to show for it. I want my money back!

Do you work for the Agran campaign? You joined within the last 24 hours and spent 50% of your posts defending Agran. Where were you when I posted about this 10 years ago?

Here is another blast from the past, so voters don't forget the REAL Larry Agran.

Tainted Irvine Democrats Hope Sacramento Pals Will Rescue Them In Great Park Scandal
By R. Scott Moxley
Published Tue., Apr. 21 2015 at 11:15 AM

Luke McGarry / OC Weekly
Ever want to see politicians simultaneously argue two sides of one stance--and pretend they are consistent? Go to Irvine and see Beth Krom and Larry Agran in action. More than a year ago, Krom and Agran devised a two-pronged communications strategy to undermine the independent audit of how their political machine spent in excess of $200 million without building a single, major, promised feature at the Orange County Great Park.
The first prong involved trying to rile up the public by describing the audit as a waste of taxpayer funds, which was never a concern when their machine ran the proposed park and handed out $165,000 a month in no bid, no benchmark contracts to their own political consultants. Booted from power by 2012 voters, the pair suddenly discovered the notion of frugality.

Once one of California's largest and most anticipated public works projects, the Great Park idea under the leadership of Krom and Agran devolved into a cesspool of incompetence, mismanagement and cronyism you'd expect from two local politicians, one a housewife and the other a lawyer who has never held a private sector job, pretending they possessed the expertise to create a $1.6 billion, "world class" park.

As discussed in this publication for months, the $1.3 million audit--which would have cost less if Agran and his allies hadn't played stonewall games during the process--provides a valuable history that puts the lie to their insistence they achieved victory on a project that remains incomplete to this day.

The adventures in LarryLand don't end there. Having established their stance that the audit of Great Park spending was a horrible fiscal burden on the public, the duo has spent recent months begging their Democratic Party allies in the state legislature to . . . drum roll, please . . . launch a new taxpayer funded audit of the city's audit. Penny-pinching is apparently no longer the ranking talking point.

On April 22, Assemblyman Mike Gipson (D-Carson) is expected to have his Joint Legislative Audit Committee ponder auditing the audit. Krom and Agran crave the move in hopes of winning a partisan report that will aid them re-take control of Irvine and the park project's kitty in the 2016 elections. Lefty bloggers are giddy with the prospect. This scenario could get really exciting if the Republican-controlled U.S. Congress initiates a federal audit of the state audit of the city audit.

The second Krom-Agran attack prong is even more laughable. In an April 19 guest column in the OC Register, for example, Krom ignored her alliance's park construction failures and massive spending on well-connected, loafer-wearing consultants. She posited they should get credit for dreaming "big."

Sorry, but city council members don't get applause for an "award-winning master plan" that cost taxpayers more than $40 million, a design worthless the moment it hit paper because the architect pretended he was working for Marie Antoinette and had a bottomless treasury to plunder. In a portion of the park that is as flat as a West Texas prairie, they thought it was a good idea to build a massive man-made canyon. Get it? They wanted the Great Park in heavily residential, suburban Irvine to have a Grand Canyon.

Krom is nevertheless sticking to her script, a lowbrow comedy.

"I'm proud of what was accomplished during the years when vision, innovation and balanced planning defined our city," she wrote in her editorial. "We built the park planning process around public engagement, cultural and recreational experiences and celebrating Orange County's agricultural and military heritage."

Ahhh, if it were only true. During the Krom-Agran years running the city, journalists' digging into park spending was treated like affronts to national security operations. Hard to believe?

Consider this fact: In 2008, Krom, Agran and their then-third ally, Sukhee Kang, refused to show their two elected, Republican colleagues, Christina Shea and Steven Choi, resumes of job applicants seeking to become chief executive officer of the Great Park. Incredibly, Shea and Choi had to sue in Orange County Superior Court. Taxpayers got to pay the legal bills for the Krom-Agran-Kang losing antics. In recent months, an unrepentant Krom has defended that secrecy as a legitimate exercise of her then-council majority's power. Flip flopping on her flip flop, Krom's Reg editorial lambasted the present council majority for its lack of transparency and "unchecked authority."

But the park investigation by Aleshire & Wynder's Anthony Taylor is the most substantive contribution to government transparency in the city's 43 years of existence. Taylor, whose accomplishments include tracing missing public funds in the City of Bell scandal, professionally documented the alarming Great Park mess that should be a cautionary tale for future municipal projects throughout the nation. (See: "Final Audit Report Shows Larry Agran's Great Park Plan Was A Debacle From The Outset," March 24, 2015.) Though unnecessary, a state legislature audit, if truly fair, would come to the same conclusion.

Follow OC Weekly on Twitter @ocweekly or on Facebook!

Email: rscottmoxley@ocweekly.com. Twitter: @RScottMoxley.

iacrenter said:

That article does not clear his name. Taxpayers were out hundreds of millions of dollars, and we had no park to show for it. I want my money back!

Do you work for the Agran campaign? You joined within the last 24 hours and spent 50% of your posts defending Agran. Where were you when I posted about this 10 years ago?

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Your statement: “Taxpayers were out hundreds of millions of dollars, and we had no park to show for it”. Now, that statement is just so not true! Allow me to refresh your memory. All the contractors worked tirelessly to provide the residents of Orange County with the award-winning Master Plan for the Great Park. Here is a list of what was achieved:
The Palm Court
Arts Complex - Studio & Gallery
North Lawn / Terrace Lawn
Athletics Field - Sports Courts & Soccer Fields
Historic Walkable Timeline
Hanger 244 - restoration & re-purposing
Farm & Food Lab
Restrooms
Festival Site
New Visitors Pavillion
Reflecting Ponds
Viewing Pier
Balloon & Balloon Park
Kids Rock Play Area & Carousel
Farmers Market
Festival Grounds / Parking
They also:
developed a public information campaign
organized the international design competition
brought Cirque du Soleil to the Great Park
won the competition for being the host city for the U.S. Solar Decathlon
increased the value of the Great Park by a deal that compensated us with 130 more acres
developed programs, festivals such as the Pumpkin Harvest festival, concerts, and a whole host of activities that built the attendance at the park from 100,000 to over a million visitors in 2012.

When the new council took over, they dismissed the board of nine by getting rid of the independent board members. The City Council decided to trash the Master Plan and strike a deal with FivePoint Communities. Sad to say but their vision of what a metropolitan park should be, will be nothing like the vision it was intended to be.

Now, you want your money back? Here is a breakdown of the $200 million that was budgeted to build 200 acres of the Western Sector of the Great Park:
$26,000,000 - Design 200 acres of the Western Sector of the Great Park
$ 8,000,000 - Demolition
$71,500,000 - Building/Constructing Features & Activation
$25,000,000 - Programs & Special Events
$ 6,500,000 - Loaned to the Great Park Corporation prior to 2005 for operating expenses and paid back to the City General Fund
$38,000,000 - Deposited to the Affordable Housing Fund as required by the State
$25,000,000 - Balance Remaining
__________________________________
= $200 million

$130.5 million was spent on the Great Park from 2005 through 2012
$ 69.5 million was allocated elsewhere by the City or was not spent

So, $44.5 million is the accurate amount that came right off the top of the $200 million. And according to city records, $25 million was not spent. The breakdown of the $130.5 million is a rough estimate of how the money was allocated by nine Great Park board members.

I trust you have no further comment.

$200M for paint on a runway, playground, bathroom, and an orange eyesore! No wonder Californians pay some of the highest taxes in the country. If Agran had been a better steward of our tax dollars, the developers would not have been able to force 10,000 homes into the Great Park.