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[1] Overview and Background
Allegations surfaced on Saturday about Chinese language leaflets, supplemented by blog posts, allegedly being circulated in Irvine. These leaflets allegedly encourage voters of Chinese ancestry to blame the approval of the plan to build a veterans cemetery in the Great Park entirely on Democrats and to vote for Irvine’s Official Republican slate of Steven Choi for Mayor, and Jeff Lalloway and Lynn Schott for City Council. That targeting contradictory messages to different communities is sleazy, but it’s not the main problem. The documents also suggest something far more dastardly: that those on that slate are interested in reversing the approval of the cemetery plan after the election.
These allegations are serious and scandalous, and it doesn’t take enormous creativity to imagine various ways in which they could be a dirty trick. Nor is it difficult to imagine their being true. OJB understands that this story will break elsewhere on Sunday, so we are trying to do as fastidious a job as possible of letting people know what information is coming, how it got there, and from what sources — and then to provide people with as much original information in our hands as may help them investigate and interpret matters for themselves.
For those new to Irvine politics, this is the lay of the land. Irvine has a five-person City Council. For over a decade, ending in 2012, it was governed by Democrats: most prominently Larry Agran and Beth Krom. In 2012, Republicans took control of the Council when Steven Choi defeated Agran for Mayor; Agran remained on City Council. The two others elected in 2012 were Krom and a Republican, Christine Shea, neither of whom are up for election this year. Agran and the fifth incumbent, Jeffrey Lalloway, are both running for reelection. The Mayoral candidate on Agran’s slate is Mary Ann Gaido; the third member slate is Melissa Fox. The third member of the Choi-Lalloway slate is Lynn Schott. The Democrats describe themselves as “Slow Growth” and Republicans as “Fast Growth”; I believe that the Republicans reject those terms but I don’t know what if anything they use instead. Two moderate Republicans, both “Slow Growth,” are running independently: Katherine Daigle (who writes here as “Irvine Valkyrie”) for Mayor and Evan Chemers for City Council.
One among many issues that divided the Council this past year was Sharon Quirk-Silva’s AB 1453, which established a veterans cemetery in Orange County and was signed after Irvine committed to donating city land to the state for the federal government to make plans to construct a cemetery, which would be paid for by benefits already available to veterans.
[2] Finding Out about the Flyers
The flyers were apparently provided to the campaign of Melissa Fox, who sent a message to one or more leaders of the the Orange County Veterans Memorial Park Committee (a group with which I have been involved) saying that “the Choi/Lalloway campaign is telling residents that the plan can be overturned” Fox also reported personally seeing discussions to that effect on “WeChat.”
Next came an email from an undetermined author (apparently a Mandarin speaker and not Fox herself) with a copy of the flyer, as presented below. (The image is a little blurry and the Chinese pictograms look like they may be hard to distinguish, so at the end of this post I presen each half of the flyer at greater size for people who read Chinese and want to test the translation.)
Annotated graphic of proposed site of veterans cemetery within the Great Park.
Here is the text of the flyer that precedes this graphic. Some overlapping language is included to help orient the reader.
The email is entitled “Cemetery and fast growth topic in Chinese community — Important” and clearly comes from a Democratic source. Statements by the author him or herself are in blue; quotes from the flyer are in red:
Hi All,
Sorry, it is a little too long. But, it is important. ( I think veterans needs to call Choi’s, Jeff’s office about this.)
About cemetery;
After realizing that growth issue and friendship city issue are hurting them hard, Choi’s operatives in Chinese community have shifted attention to cemetery.
(They saw an opening on this issue.)
There are some people who are passionately against cemetery for whatever the reason. Choi’s operatives were able to direct those people’s anger at Larry and the team using the articles from your campaign material. Now, they have the man power to go around the Chinese community on that issue. I just got one flyer from them today. (See attached)
The flyer is in Chinese only. So, I will roughly translate it in English.
They are very smart. They didn’t put Choi’s name on it. However, it is obliviously from Choi supporters.
How can we fight back?
Most Chinese people associate cemetery as a bad thing in general. However, if we tell them the whole story, they might be able to accept veteran cemetery in Great Park unless he/she lives really close by. We are doing that on WeChat. However, since this cemetery has no “benefit” to Chinese community, we cannot play offensive on this issue by reaching out to the Chinese people who has not heard about this issue before. That means we cannot email to our friends, nor pass out flyers to Chinese people regarding this issue. If we do, we might be getting more votes for Choi.
I think the only solution is to ask veteran community and their family members to help. Basically, Choi’s team is attacking your team in Asian communities on this issue. The veteran community needs to stand up and defend your team on this issue. (Choi’s team tries to incite Asian people against veterans. )
As for Chinese community, we probably cannot do much on this issue. It will be bad. But, I don’t think it will be very bad. There are still many fair minded Chinese people here. The Chinese people who really against veteran cemetery are some very selfish people or some who do not know what US cemetery looks like. By the way, I know many fair minded Chinese who are supporting veteran cemetery in Great Park. We are very thankful for the veterans.
[Material on “fast” vs. “slow” growth omitted.]
Here are some of the posts made by people who against cemetery.
For those of you who may be equipped to translate the document yourself, larger versions of the right and left half of the document appear at the end of this post.
[3] The Candidates Talk to the Chinese Community
For some additional background, OCVMP members were directed towards a (very slanted towards Dems) report on a Candidates Forum at a Chinese School from The Liberal OC, by the guy who isn’t Chris Prevatt, so I’ll include that here as well. (The lack of paragraph breaks is in the original):
The discussion of the Veteran’s Cemetery was also illuminating. After Mayor Choi brought up the issue of Feng Shui in initially opposing the Cemetery and Memorial and even FivePoint backed away from it saying Feng Shui was a consideration in discussions about the Memorial, Lalloway tried to use Agran’s dismissal of Feng Shui as some sort of intentional disrespect to the Chinese American Community. But Lalloway made a big mistake and didn’t drop the other shoe. Choi used Feng Shui as a reason to oppose building the Cemetery and Memorial at the Great Park. Choi was bowing to the wishes of the developer and tried to suggest Federal Land north of the Great Park would be a better spot, citing a meeting he asked for with the FBI about a parcel for a cemetery and homebuyer objections to a cemetery so close to homes. Melissa Fox used her time to say she’d include input from the Chinese American community in the development of the cemetery. Katherine Daigle provided the most emotional and heartfelt answer of why the Veteran’s Cemetery and Memorial needed to be in Irvine; she was misty-eyed defining the freedoms we enjoy today were due to the sacrifice of men and women in uniform. How some of them came back and others didn’t. And she said opposition to placing this memorial at the Great Park should not be tolerated. It was Daigle’s best moment and one that made Choi look small-minded.
[4] Enter Gang Chen
Last Sunday, October 19, a Chinese American citizen of Irvine named Gang Chen began to write on his blog, http://1001politics.blogspot.com/, about the cemetery issue, which he said that he had only recently discovered. It is not clear whether Chen just happened upon the issue by coincidence (after the Governor’s visit to Irvine to celebrate it with, primarily, Irvine Republicans) or is part of a more organized effort to reach into Irvine’s Chinese community and divert them to the Republican party. (While he says that he has voted for both Agran and Choi in the past, in March he argued that 10,000 Asians should re-register as Republicans, so he’s clearly not new to thinking about partisan politics.) Regardless, Chen’s writings are out there now — and ripe for commentary by Choi, Lalloway, and Schott. What is unfair and unethical is for them to benefit from a campaign limited to the Chinese community that disavows the actions that Choi, Lalloway, and Shea took in voting for the proposal.
Chen’s writings of Sunday call for a public vote on whether the Great Park should host a veterans cemetery — apparently unclear, as Choi suggested above, that the Governor had already signed the bill — and encourage direct contacts to Agran and Choi. (He expresses a preference for Choi based on his willingness “to consider the Asian Culture on this matter,” threatening permanent political retaliation on those who disagree with his view.) This was his “sample letter”:
“I oppose to adding a cemetery to the Great Park. It is too close to the residential areas and the proposed high school, and show no respect to the residents’ culture. I urge you to help to STOP the cemetery project in the Grate Park, and place it at another more appropriate location. Otherwise, I’ll have all my friends and relatives in Irvine vote against you in ALL your future elections!
Note that at this point, Chen is not being particularly partisan. But something happened the next day to make him choose a side with full force.
By Monday, Chen had clearly been in contact with people with more knowledge about the issue:
I found out about the cemetery issue lately. Based on my research, it seems like Sharon Silva’s proposal was to get 100 acres of land for the cemetery, and it does NOT specifically calls for the land in Irvine. Larry Agran is a major proponent for the cemetery, and proposed to give away 125 acres of the Great park land for free for the cemetery. Steven Choi did bring up Asian residents’ concerns about Feng Shui regarding the cemetery. Unfortunately, most Asian residents (39.2% of the Irvine population, over 80,000 in number did not even know about the cemetery and few or none of the Asians were at the city council meetings to voice our concerns.
Steven Choi and Jeff Lallaway intended to delay the votes but were more or less forced into vote yes by the constant pressure of the 30 veterans who were constantly at many of the city council meeting
(My emphasis.) The people to whom Chen spoke were clearly strongly partisan. That’s not a problem in itself. My interest here is in whether they are trying to “have their cake an eat it too” by telling different and incompatible stories to the Asian and non-Asian communities. Not long after appearing with veterans and the Governor to celebrate the signing of AB 1453, someone was apparently telling Chen that Steven Choi TRIED to stop the cemetery, and that he and Lalloway TRIED to delay th evote, but those high-pressure veterans just wouldn’t let them do it.
I think that this is true of Choi — although he doesn’t seem to want to remind people of it outside of Irvine’s Asian community. But who told Chen that Lalloway was also trying to delay the vote on the cemetery to the point where AB 1453 could not have been signed this year? Was it someone associated with Lalloway? Because Lalloway’s public statement was that he would be the third vote to bring a veterans cemetery to the Great Park — and to his credit (in my opinion) he did come through. So how — and from whom — is Chen getting the contrary impression?
How well Chen had been briefed by Monday is clear from the “Candidate Questionnaire” that he (or someone) had put together, the first question of which is: “If FivePoint wants to exercise its First Right of Refusal to buy the 125 acres land that city approved for the Veteran Cemetery, will you support FivePoint?” (Five Point had explicitly refused to buy this parcel at the time that it bought the rest of the land; that’s why it was available to be given to the state.) Someone who knows about the “Right of First Refusal” (which would expire by the time the land actually changes hands) has had matters explained to him in considerable depth. So is Chen being used by agents of the Republican Party to make them think that their vote for Republicans can reverse this decision? If so, will Irvine Republicans own up to that? (And by “Irvine Republicans,” I mean only the formal party structure associated with the endorsed slate; many Irvine Republicans, such as Katherine Daigle, have been strong proponents of the Great Park veterans cemetery. )
By Tuesday, Chen was presenting this message in Chinese (translation, no doubt faulty in places but mostly plausible, from Google — and I apologize to the extent that it is less standard English than Chen’s other prose, but OJB cannot afford translation services):
Irvine built large cemetery, and most people do not know Irvine
Irvine has always been a beautiful environment, good school district, job opportunities, better known for law and order, and thus Irvine has also become one of the first urban Chinese and other Asian buyers home buyers. 40% of the total population of Asian Irvine, about 83,000 people. But the quality of life will suffer a serious blow Irvine. This is how it goes?
Irvine recently in a large park (The Great Park) built large cemetery, and most Irvine residents do not know. Most heard the news Irvine residents (especially Asians) have expressed opposition to that cemetery too close to the downtown area, too close to homes and schools, do not take into account the cultural traditions of Asian origin. Few politicians in order to gain votes, without any public consultation and the views of residents near Irvine, in July this year by several city councilors voted through.
Irvine and Irvine election veterans cemetery case
Irvine elections this year is that the mayor of major competitors, Steven Choi (Republican) for Mary Ann Gaido (Democrat). City Council elections main competitor, Jeff Lalloway (Republican), Lynn Scott (Republican), Melissa Fox (Democratic Party), Larry Agran (Democrat).
1. The cemetery was originally developed by the California Democrat Rep. Sharon Quirk-Silva raised in Orange County to find a place. Mr Irvine Democrat City Larry Agran offered in Irvine. Finally, after several months of tug of war on July 22 of this year, the City Council 5: 0 by. At that time the Republican mayor and city councilors have made in other cities, or delays decision was strongly attacked in the presence of about thirty veterans and their supporters booed noise.
2. Larry Agran Democrats dominated team (Melissa Fox and Mary Ann Gaido) has said that the cemetery was built in the election manifesto in five years. Can be estimated that this team after taking office will vigorously gathered funds to build the cemetery.
3. The long-term impact on the cemetery Irvine. Cemetery land would come from reducing the house to it? No, only reduce the park to do the cemetery. Will reduce the Asians to Irvine it? Likely. Irvine is known as the Garden City, 125 acres large cemetery find it difficult to accept in the Asian culture. Irvine cemetery will increase whites to come? Not necessarily. You see a million mansion in California, where over a large area of the cemetery you, Bi Fuli Villa? Newport Cost? PV? Even if you do not live in Irvine planning cemetery nearby communities, but also do not think that 125 acres of the cemetery will certainly add value to your house prices.
The opportunity to make this cemetery was not built in Irvine ballot in your hand, let all your friends and relatives to vote for Steven Choi (Republican) Jeff Lalloway (Republican), Lynn Scott (Republican) in order to beat the strong support of the construction cemetery Larry Agran (Democratic Party), Mary Ann Gaido (Democrat), Melissa Fox (Democrat)!
So, Irvine Republicans, there you have it. Do you want the votes of those who are being told that you don’t really support a veterans cemetery in Irvine? Because that is what Gang Chen is telling the Chinese community. Is this welcome — or not? You should speak out and clarify things.
On Thursday, Chen made a similar appeal in English, entitled: A huge cemetery will be built in Irvine, and most Irvine residents do not even know about it…
Irvine has been known for its nice environment, excellent school district, abundant employment opportunities, and safety. It has become a top city for people to buy homes and raise their family. However, the quality of life can face serious challenge. What is the reason?
A huge 125-acre veteran’s cemetery will be built in Irvine, and most of the Irvine residents do not even know about it. Most of those who found out about the news are against the location of the proposed cemetery in the Great Park. They support the veterans to have a cemetery, but they think the Great Park is definitely the wrong location for the cemetery. They think the proposed cemetery is too close to the urban areas, too close to the residential areas and the school, and may have negative environmental impact.
Larry Agran is a main proponent for the cemetery.
There are two major teams of candidates running for Irvine city council and mayor:
Republican: Steven Choi, Jeff Lalloway and Lynn Schott
Democrat: Larry Agran, Mary Ann Gaido, and Melissa Fox
If you do not like the huge cemetery in Irvine, vote for Republican: Steven Choi, Jeff Lalloway and Lynn Schott, and defeat Larry Agran and his team to send a strong message to him, and start the first step of moving the cemetery to another location away from urban areas.
So I ask Mr. Choi, Mr. Lalloway, and Ms. Schott again: do you want people voting for you under the belief that that will be “the first step of moving the cemetery to another location away from urban areas“?
(If you do — does that mean that you believe that it is true? Or … do you want to play it both ways?)
On Saturday — yesterday — this appeared in Chinese, with translation again coming from Google (corrections welcome):
[Irvine squad in action]
“Irvine is my home, how can we not love her? Safeguard US homeland, they rely on you and me!” Nursing home teams go! We all work together to sweep the streets handing out leaflets exposing the truth cemetery built by electioneering way, prevent the adoption of the proposal.
Flyer cover areas: Great Park, Portola Spring, Woodbury, Stone Gate, Northwood, Northwood Pointe, El Camino, North Park and all district schools. .
Leaflets in public places: Zion Market, 99 Ranch Markets, H Mart, 85 Degree Area, as well as a place for all children in extracurricular activities.
Flyers payment method: before and after dinner, sweep over the host cell neighbor; before and after school to school contact all parents; before and after lunch and dining area supermarkets assault; idle time send e-mail to all your friends Irvine. Volunteers participating in volunteer flyers Consider the following link, you can download the flyer: [link omitted]
(Emphasis mine. Irvine GOP, please inform Gang Chen of the rules regarding independent expenditures. Thanks.)
Chen’s latest post, at 12:21 on October 26 (this morning, when perhaps he had been tipped off about his upcoming notoriety), was more thoughtful, and I will engage with it:
In Asian culture, the location of the cemetery is very important. It is a taboo to place cemetery next to homes or close to urban area. Even the emperor’s tomb is built far away from urban areas.
Veterans fight for us, die for us, we absolutely respect them, but I am pretty sure they fight so that we can have freedom to voice our opinions, so that we can live happily on this land of free, and the home of the brave. I am sure once they really understand Asian cultures and know it is a taboo to put cemetery to homes or close to urban areas, they will work with us to find a better location for everyone.
I want to thank Mr. Chen for expressing his views so clearly and for recognizing the importance of honoring veterans. Now we can talk.
[5] Why the Veterans Cemetery is Located Where It Is
I’m married to an Asian woman who is about the same age as President Obama. She does believe in principles of feng shui, and she runs our home, so our home in various respects reflects that. Her children — my step-daughters, all of whom came to the U.S. before age 18 — do not. They retain their Filipino (and part-Chinese) heritage, but they have leavened it with American ways. The “taboos” associated with feng shui are to some extent generational. To state that “Asian culture” holds a certain belief is to fail to recognize that Asian culture is itself changing as it comes onto American shores. They would not be bothered by proximity to a cemetery; I’ve asked them. (If they’d be bothered by living right across the street from one, it’s because they watch too many horror movies.)
Still, I respect your right to your beliefs and your taboos. If you would not want to live in the Five Points development near the planned veterans cemetery, you shouldn’t. (Right now, nobody lives there; the houses have not yet been built.) But when you try to impose that taboo on a broad swath of a city like Irvine, then you become unreasonable; you subject everyone to your own — although probably not your children’s — beliefs. (I’ve heard people say that “there should be no cemetery within five miles” — not realizing that there are already cemeteries within five miles of the homes to be built in the Great Park.) That puts a substantial burden on the community.
In fact, if you had your way, there would be no Veterans Cemetery in Orange County. I’m telling you, as a member of the Orange County Veterans Memorial Park Committee, that we looked all over the county for one. No other opportunity arose. What you may not realize is that a veterans cemetery, if it is to be funded by the federal government, has to meet certain requirements: and those requirements are hard to meet.
For example, it has to be relatively flat, so the rolling hills of Irvine and elsewhere are out. Why? Because elderly people and small children will be walking on these grounds to find and visit their fallen loved ones. The government doesn’t want them to have to deal with significant slopes. Not so unreasonable, right?
There also have to be roads present, utility lines present, sewers in the area, and so on. Now, these can be built. But it’s expensive — and the expense of building a veterans cemetery is one of the things that has long prevented it. The nice thing about the Great Park is that all of the transportation and utility infrastructure that needs to be there … is already there. That’s how we can afford to build something there that will not turn a profit.
But there’s something else that you should understand, something that, in essence, is part of our secular American beliefs. That is the belief that hosting a veterans cemetery is a tremendous honor. It is something that will be both a source of tourism and a source of pride for Irvine. It is the one remaining part of the Great Park plan that still warrants the term “Great.” It is the one element of the Great Park that will be a link back to the park’s history as “Marine Corps Air Station, El Toro” — the last spot on American soil that many soldiers and sailors and airmen and Marines touched before they went off to fight — largely in East Asia.
That means a lot to Americans. I think it’s fair to say that it is probably as well ingrained in American culture as feng shui is ingrained in Asian culture. This is not just another cemetery. This is to be, in some respects, more of a shrine.
If it were just another cemetery, then you’re right — it could be placed elsewhere. It wouldn’t be subject to so many rules and regulations. But it is more than that — it is the fulfillment of a promise that we make to our troops, troops like my own daughter, when they enlist. And Orange County has needed one badly for many many years.
Against what I hope that you will agree are the legitimate interests of veterans, we have to balance the adherence to taboos of Asian cultures. And there, we have to ask: well, who is going to live there when the homes are built? And the answer is that Five Point is apparently marketing them to Chinese investors trying to park money outside of the People’s Republic of China as a safe haven from possible economic turmoil there. And I have to say, Mr. Chen — however much consideration I would want to give to our Chinese citizens here, and that is a large amount, I think that I owe a lot less of it to Chinese entrepreneurs, who are not American citizens, who are just buying homes as investments. If they don’t want to buy these houses, I’ll bet that there are a whole lot of U.S. military veterans, American citizens, who would love to live with them and who won’t have a problem with feng shui.
Asian cultural concerns do deserve, and did receive, reasonable consideration in the citing process — but that does not mean that they must be allowed to veto the only viable site for a veterans cemetery that could be located in Orange County. That is too much to ask — especially on behalf of foreign citizens trying to protect their riches.
[6] Steven Choi and Jeffrey Lalloway need to speak up — and RIGHT NOW
Gang Chen has presented his view of the overriding importance of Asian cultural taboos — ones that ultimately did not prevent Steven Choi from voting for this proposal. Now, he — apparently informed by Republican operatives — are spreading the story in order to get Choi and Lalloway votes from Irvine’s Chinese community that, despite their votes and their posing with the Governor, Choi and Lalloway cannot be relied on to continue to support the veterans cemetery in the Great Park.
Mr. Choi and Mr. Lalloway: I think that Mr. Chen is wrong — and that you are committed to being stalwart allies of the veterans cemetery against attacks of the sort being leveled by him and his allies. But if so, it is time for you to say so out loud and in no uncertain terms: that you will not change your tune after the election and you will see this project through to its completion.
Yes, this means that you might not get some votes under the false pretenses that you really plan to undercut the project. But that’s what being honorable is all about. So — are you honorable?
And if the people who say that you’ll really change your mind and undercut the Great Park veterans cemetery after the election are right about you — well, you really owe it to the voters to state that clearly as well. Where do you two stand? Say it loud and clear.
Left half of the copy of original flyer — presented at a larger size to facilitate translation.
Right half of flyer text presented at larger size to facilitate independent translation.
Finally, here is a MUCH better version of the flyer, taken from Gang Chen’s Dropbox (which is linked to on his site).
The big question is: “WHO?”
This is clearly a political flyer, but nowhere does it state who paid for it. The only copy you reference is via the Fox campaign. I would like to confirmed a sighting of this document in “the wild” — that is, someone stepping forward and “I found this turned up my mailbox/doorstep/ email” — before pushing the speculation too far. *How* this is spread will tell us a lot about who is actually behind it.
Irvine politics has gotten very ugly. Larry Agran appears to be losing, and desperately needs to change the topic. This kind of controversy is made to order for that. Not only does it move the conversation towards his preferred topic — the Cemetery — it does so in racially divisive way. Then again, there are political actors on the Irvine right dumb enough to do something this stupid.
You write “OJB understands that this story will break elsewhere on Sunday.” Once that happens I hope you, too, will be forthcoming about your knowledge of how this story was sourced and spread.
Either way, this is going to be an interesting story.
Fair questions, Tyler.
(1) Until this afternoon, the copy from the Fox campaign is the only one I’ve seen. There was a link on Gang Chen’s site that said could be used to download a flyer for distribution, but I didn’t click it until now; it links to a Dropbox folder, the first item within which says “Chinese flyer” — and it’s this one. So the distribution is being done through Gang Chen and his friends in the GOP should really make sure that he understands the relevant laws. In that 10/25 post (above), he indicates where they are distributing and posting it.
(2) My primary interest here is in warding off any threat to the approval of the cemetery. I think that under the circumstances, the endorsed Republican slate candidates have to make clear that they will not try to take back what they have given. I think that they have to disavow any efforts to suggest that they would give Gang Chen the result he wanted. (And, frankly, it should be in Chinese too.) Politically, I want to see Melissa Fox elected and I don’t want to see Choi retained. Which Mayoral candidate I’d vote for and which additional Council candidate are my own business; I’ll admit to feeling conflicted.
(3) I think that this cuts both ways for Agran — about whose candidacy, again, I feel conflicted. Yes, the “Choi/Lalloway seem to be playing both sides” thing helps him; but the propagation of the idea that cemetery opponents should support them — which one has to raise in order to broach the “playing both sides” idea — probably hurts him with those voters. I absolutely do not think that this is some extremely subtle effort for Agran to put forth Gang Chen to attack him, or anything like that, even if he does profit from it politically.
(4) The reason that I went through Gang Chen’s posts in such detail is that they suggest to me that sometime between his Sunday and Monday posts he had one or more long and detailed conversations with someone who was both very informed and favorable to the Choi/Lalloway position. If it was someone directly associated with the Choi/Lalloway campaign, then this is dirty rotten double-dealing politics and they deserve to have it blow up in their face. If it was someone not directly involved in their campaign — and the obvious candidate for that would be someone associated with Five Point — then they’re not personally culpable, but they should disavow the efforts immediately and publicly. Someone should certainly ask Gang Chen about this — but I don’t think it should be me.
(5) I found out last night that Katherine Daigle was going to write about this today either or both here and on her campaign website. (I had thought that she had a standalone site, but it is apparently a Facebook page. If she has another site, I couldn’t find it.) At that point, I decided that if this was going to come out, it should be done quickly, comprehensively, and well — so I ended up working overnight to produce this. (Judging from her site, she apparently sees no need to duplicate my efforts, as she has just linked to this.)
I have tried to investigate what was going on without favoring my expressed interests — it would have been easy to write an article in the Liberal OC mode that (unfairly) prejudged Choi/Lalloway and slammed them, but that was not what I wanted to do — and all I can say is that I hope I succeeded in getting out the available facts well enough that people can now judge for themselves.
Thanks for your work. I found your post even-handed.
Of course, whoever worked with Mr. Chen is going to disavow him unless they are a complete idiot, so this will take some time to play out.
Man you have a lot of time on your hands.
Not really. My wife and I went out at a charitable even in Glendale last night. After we got back, I had planned to go to bed by midnight or 1 — but I got information that this story (which had been bubbling along in emails earlier in the day) was going to break today. So I decided that if the story was going to come out, it should be done right — and I worked on it from 1 a.m. to 5:30 a.m. I would much rather have slept, and am suffering for it today, but I think that that was the right choice.
A pristine copy of the flyer, fresh from Gang Chen’s Dropbox, is now included at the bottom of the post.
Greg, thank you for once again pulling an all-nighter for the greater good. Please offer that lovely Mrs. Diamond the thanks of the OC pro-Veteran community, as I am sure your sleep habits affect her as well. Wow, I hope this whole thing is one big misunderstanding, and nobody out there is being skanky enough to double-deal the Veterans’ group. Creating the Veterans’ cemetery is the right thing to do, I know from my own involvement that this is the ONLY appropriate location for the grounds left in all of OC. Most of all, frankly the needs of those who have served our nation in uniform are of far, far more importance to many of us than “cultural sensitivity” toward wealthy non-citizen foreign nationals looking for a place to park their Chinese investment money! I hope Irvine leaders come out quickly and decisively to rebuke the claims of anyone who offers the impression they would backpedal on their support of our Veterans.
Mr. Diamond,
Several things in your post make no sense and totally off base:
1. Why is Great Park the only viable location for veteran cemetery? As far as I know, there are several viable locations proposed such as Santiago Canyon and San Juan pine yard. Why are they not viable? Because they are not flat enough? That sounds to me is very lame. To a lot of us, BTW, we are American Citizens, not what you called rich Chinese who is trying to park their money here, the great park is the wrong location for a cemetery because it is right in the residential and commercial area and right next to the new 5th high school. not talking about “fen shui”here, it is disrespectful to the veterans and the residents of the Great park and surrounding areas. It is simply the wrong location for people to pay their respects to the veterans with all the recreation and entertainment activities that will likely happen in the high school and the park.
2. What do you mean by “there is nobody living there?” What about Pavilion Park residents who are living across street from the proposed cemetery location? Five Point just sold million dollar homes to people and no information about the cemetery was disclosed to the buyers. Do you think that’s fair? Yes, We are furious that the city passed the bill without even ask for the residents opinion about this big project. All along we are promised a Great Park, now we are getting a Great Cemetery?!
3. I don’t who are the “fair-minded” Chinese you talk to, maybe your wife, who may not get the full picture from your story, but I can tell you 99% of Asain are against cemetery in the residential, commercial and school area. Also there are fair amount of Caucasian we talk to, who traditionally, don’t care about cemetery as much, but when they see the proposed location, they said “it’s ridiculous”!
4. I am very offended that you call people against the location “selfish”. People are not against the Cemetery, people are just voicing their opinion for a more suitable location for the hero. In this country of democracy, why no one inform, let alone ask for opinion from people whose quality of life and life savings (again, we are not “rich foreigners”, we are hard-working citizens who put their life-savings in the expensive house in Irvine) will be greatly impacted by this project?
5. Yes, Choi may be using Asian community and this cemetery issue to gain votes, but so is Larry Argan. He is trying to score votes from veterans by pushing this bill. Do you want to vote for him for the belief that he may give you a cemetery sooner than anybody else? Let me remind you that he is democratic who has not been very nice to your community as far as I know, and he is under audit for swindling away 200 million of the Great Park project.
Kathy,
Thank you for your comment. I’ll try to answer as best I can.
Overarching point, which I’ll number “0”:
Am I correct in thinking that you believe that this matter was NOT settled when the Governor signed this legislation — and that you think that Mr. Choi and Mr. Lalloway will reverse the decision? If so, what do you make of Choi’s comment to his Chinese that “I couldn’t stop it alone. The boat has left. Governor signed the bill.” Do you support him because you think that he will betray the people whom he agreed with when HE voted for this project? If the decision is already finalized, how does that change your analysis?
1. If cost was not an issue, there would be other viable sites. But cost is an issue. For the government to build a cemetery on a site, it requires lots of specific characteristics: relative flatness and presence of adequate roads and utilities are among them. People have been looking around for years — especially this year — to seek viable alternatives. There aren’t any.
Your remark that this site is “disrespectful to the veterans” is entirely wrong — you can ask the many veterans who have spoken about it. If anything is “disrespectful” to the veterans, it is building yet more indistinguishable housing tracts on the land of the former Marine Corps Air Base while veterans do not receive their promise of a military burial, at least within any distance where their relatives will visit. They are willing to coexist, if necessary, with a community that doesn’t like them there, but I suspect that eventually the market will provide buyers for whom living near a veterans cemetery is a positive, not a negative. As for a veterans cemetery being near a high school — that again should be a point of pride. The veterans don’t seem to mind football being played nearby.
2. Relatively small number of houses have been built in the area immediately around the proposed cemetery and last I heard no one had yet moved in. That’s what I meant by “no one is living there.” Pavilion Park is not “across the street” from the proposed cemetery location; it is across Irvine Rd. (which the closest, northernmost part of the cemetery does not touch) and almost a mile away as the crow flies. You won’t be able to see the Park from there. As for your slogan, the Cemetery is a small part of the Great Park.
Five Point has been quite clear that it is marketing these homes to investors from China who want to park their money in Irvine. If the undisclosed possibility of a cemetery was material to the sale, they can try to have the sales voided for lack of disclosure. If it is not material, then they will have to sell to others if they want to move. They’ll still probably make money on their sheltered money. When you say “we are furious” — who is “we”? You’re not invested in this section of the Great Park, are you?
3. If you just tell them that it’s a cemetery and don’t tell them that it’s a VETERANS cemetery — the sort of thing that becomes a national monument elsewhere — then I doubt that you’re getting their informed condition. And, again, if they felt so strongly, they were welcome and able to make their views known during all the time when the project was being discussed.
4. If (as I presume) you live north of Irvine Rd., the presence of a cemetery is not likely to affect your property values. That would only happen if the universe of possible buyers were limited to people with feng shui based concerns about a cemetery too far away to see — and the universe is not that limited. As for your complaints about not being told, you might want to direct them to Five Point, the developer of the adjacent homes. If they knew of major opposition by Chinese American residents, why didn’t they arrange for people to come speak before the City Council at the time of the vote? They did many things that were much more costly. I think that it’s because community opposition wasn’t that great.
5. I’m going to ignore the swipe at Agran and Democrats, which makes me suspect that you’re more affiliated with the GOP than you let on. What you fail to understand again is that the issue is settled. Democrats and Republicans will bring on the cemetery at the same speed. If the Republicans think that they can and will slow or stop it, they should speak up RIGHT NOW so that the public can judge them on that basis. So far, they haven’t said anything — except perhaps in working with Gang Chen (and perhaps you) to promote these ideas.
I think that you misunderstand Agran’s motives. Whatever the problems with the Great Park, his desire for a veterans cemetery here was sincere and was not based on how many votes he could get from veterans. It was based on his desire to reclaim the Great Park, even if only in part, as a great PUBLIC space rather than just another set of housing tracts with some sports venues. And if he gets veterans votes now, it’s because he spoke straight to them, worked hard, and delivered on his promises.
Even you must agree that Agran has been consistent. Choi hasn’t been. He tried to kill the proposal in its infancy, and when he couldn’t (because his ally Jeff Lalloway wouldn’t go along with it), he then switched his vote to yes, which his ally Christine Shea did not. Then, at the end, he tried to kill it again — but again Lalloway wouldn’t give him a majority, so both he AND Shea switched their votes to yes. The proposal that you say you hate passed on a 5-0 vote.
Choi then CLEARLY went out of his way to appeal to veterans when he and his allies appeared with the Governor, on his visit here a month ago, to celebrate this accomplishment. To be clear: if he is now dedicated to supporting the project, I have no problem with that; he ended up on the right side even if the major obstacle he had to surmount was his own opposition. But if he is being two-faced — claiming credit for supporting the cemetery when talking to the public at large while claiming credit for opposing the cemetery when communicating to the Chinese community — then he is a disgusting liar. If he is a disgusting two-faced liar, then people shouldn’t vote for him. Don’t you agree?
We now have two people — you and Gang Chen — who say that they believe that Choi and Lalloway CAN AND WILL do something to reverse this decision if they are reelected. You say that many Chinese people will vote for them due to his willingness to change his mind. Well, one sign of a bad politician is someone who is trying to have it all ways, different promises to different people.
If, as I hope, they will remain committed to the plan they voted for, they need to say so NOW, they need to say so CLEARLY, and they need to say so IN A PUBLISHED STATEMENT WRITTEN IN CHINESE. In fact, I hope that ALL candidates will sign such a statement. We need to know that they will not wait until after they are elected and then suddenly change their tune.
+10,000
Kathy, the “Santiago Canyon” location is not viable – for much of anything. it was a brainless idea floated (I believe) by Spitzer.
Thanks to the ever greasy Bill Campbell (+ Bates and Nguyen) the County taxpayers bought 100 acres of mostly steep hillside. The only easily developable part is next to/under high voltage power lines and consistes of a few acress of the parcel.
On the subject of things that “make no sense”, perhaps these contradictions can be cleared up?
In (3) you say “I can tell you 99% of Asain are against cemetery”, yet in (4) you say “People are not against the Cemetery”. Huh?
In (1) you say ” It is simply the wrong location for people to pay their respects to the veterans with all the recreation and entertainment activities that will likely happen in the high school and the park.” Well, HOW is it, that those same School and Park activities are tolerable to the residents, yet supposedly NOT to cemetery visitors? WHY did you buy a house next to the ‘intolerable’ School and Park activities, then?
(Although one would think the 125 ACRE SIZE of the cemetery would (both to adjacent residences and itself) presumably offer buffering from that alleged interference, and presumably, those PAYING the respects, in SELECTING the sight, DON’T seem to object? )
Yet in (4) you say (adjacent houses) “will be greatly impacted by this project”. HOW SO? Noise? Traffic? How would THOSE equal or exceed the same from the School and Park? Or what else? I’m perplexed.-
+1000
I don’t have a horse in this race, but I find it fascinating how Irvine has changed over the years.
Having a home near a large open space I would believe to be a benefit. Having that space remain a grass covered sward seems to remain a benefit.
A cemetery is not just a large open space. It is supposed to be located in rural place, not in middle of a residual neighborhood.
I don’t know why you think a cemetery is “supposed to be” located in a rural place. Forest Lawn, to take a prominent example, lists its LA and OC locations as being in Arcadia, Industry, Covina Hills, Cypress, Glendale, Hollywood Hills, and Long Beach. The Los Angeles Veterans Cemetery (now full) is in Westwood, at the intersection of Wilshire Blvd. and the 405. Arlington Cemetery in Virginia is right across from the Jefferson Memorial. What you’re saying may be true in China (I really don’t know), but it’s simply not true here in the U.S. — especially for a Veterans cemetery.
Almost all cemeteries started out at the edge of towns, and many got swallowed up by suburbia. The reason is simple they didn’t want pollute their own wells and real estate is a lot cheaper than in towns.
The cemetery in Anaheim, as Cynthia can confirm was outside of town. In the 50s it became surrounded by tract houses.
I’d bet that when the Westwood cemetery was laid out Wilshire was little more than a two lane road leading to Santa Monicaand there was no 405.
A) I have never heard that a cemetery is supposed to be located in a rural place.
In fact, America has a long tradition of cemeteries smack in the middle of towns.
B) This cemetery wouldn’t be in the middle of a residual neighborhood, it would be in a great park.
[Editor’s Note: This was a single-use IP address, from an unidentifiable author with an unlikely e-mail address, spouting Republican talking points, accusing me (although she falsely attributes it to Agran) of “creating … racial hate here”), and suggesting that on this basis she has decided not to vote for him. You know what? I don’t have to put up with this sort of cynical and inflammatory Dave Ellis-style crap. If you’re a campaign operative and you want to control your message here, buy an ad. Until then, bugger off. – GAD]
You censure opinions that differ with yours and claim they are republican operatives? Very open minded of you Greg.
No, I censor (though I’d also censure) wild and baseless political accusations of racism in the waning days of a campaign. And I have little doubt, based on the original comment and its reiteration of certain talking points, that this was from a Republican operative.
One should have an open mind, but not so open than ones brains leak onto the ground. You single-named Irvine people will be welcomed back in a week. Your position in the election can be ably championed by many other people here who don’t find it necessary to sink to Dave Ellis-like tactics.
I do think you have a lot of time in your hand. Is this your main job? You don’t live in City of Irvine, if the house market fall will not affect you, so you have no place to judge how other people feels. Irvine will change forever if cemetery will be build.
In a good way, will Irvine change forever if cemetery be build!
TMI ???
http://news.yahoo.com/photos/expanding-mexico-city-running-out-of-cemeteries-1414492458-slideshow/
In a good way? are you Irvine residence? You either joking or really don’t know what you talking about. The momentum of the city will be destroyed.
Am not Irvine residence and am not joke but will visit veteran cemetery and spend money and your momentum will be good!!!
You sound so lightly, because that is not in your concern. But if the cemetery build right next to your house, you will not talk differently. So you need to take little consideration how other people feel, you are not in our shoes, talk big doesn’t make you are better person.
I would be proud to have a veterans cemetery close to my house. Do you know this is a VETERANS cemetery? Who told you never to use that word, “veterans?”
Oh, I know, with all my respect. But that doesn’t mean I have to like cemetery next to my house, right next to the high school. There always a better choice of location. Larry Agran use that for his own political gains. I will never vote for him, I urge all my family & friends never vote for him & his team. I am just as disapointed with Choi, he didn’t fight hard for Irvine residence.