Public funds funneled to Agran campaigns? Kenny the Printer subpoenaed

Kenny the Printer is Larry Agran‘s go-to print shop.  Forde & Mollrich gave Kenny no-bid contracts for Great Park work.  Great Park auditors may have discovered a conduit for funneling City of Irvine money to Agran’s political campaigns via Forde & Mollrich and Kenny the Printer.

balloon-bursting-over-Great-Park

 

Next Tuesday’s city council meeting will be dominated by Agenda Item 5.1, entitled:

5.1 PRESENTATION OF FINAL REPORT BY HSNO AND SPECIAL COUNSEL REPORT FOR GREAT PARK AUDIT; AND DISCUSSION AND DIRECTION FOR A MAJORITY OF THE CITY COUNCIL, PURSUANT TO GOVERNMENT CODE SECTION 37106, ET SEQ., TO DECIDE WHETHER OR NOT TO COMPEL LARRY AGRAN TO ANSWER QUESTIONS HE REFUSED TO ANSWER AT HIS DEPOSITION ON MARCH 13, 2015 AND FOR THE MAYOR TO REPORT THAT DETERMINATION, THROUGH SPECIAL COUNSEL, TO THE ORANGE COUNTY SUPERIOR COURT FOR FURTHER PROCEEDINGS

How’s that for an agenda item heading?  Buried in the four addendums and dozens pages of supporting material is this seemingly innocuous sentence:

The deposition of an employee of Kenny the Printer was taken on March 16th.

If you know the nitty-gritty of Irvine campaigning, your heart just jumped.

Kenny the Printer was founded in 1981 by Kenny Fisher [1] and has been the “go -to” print shop for Agran-allied campaigns for decades.

Kenny the Printer also functions as Agran’s informal “campaign finance intermediary.” Like most Irvine politicians, Larry has multiple active campaign committees.  Most of Larry’s committees have an account with Kenny, providing flexibility for money to slosh around between donors and political jobs without triggering Irvine’s “strict” campaign laws.  Irvine’s Republicans do something similar. Hate the game, not the players.

Curiously, Forde & Mollrich gave no-bid contracts for Great Park print jobs [2] to Kenny. Did public money slosh into political accounts at Kenny’s?  Why else would Great Park auditors be subpoening a print shop employee?

Kenny the Printer is not the only entity that has aroused the auditors interest into whether public money may have sloshed into political campaigns.  For some reason, Larry Agran is fighting [3] to avoid answering under oath:

16 Did any entity that did work on the Great

17 Park ever do work to assist you in any campaign that you

l8 worked on during 2005 to 2012?

( p 138, Larry Agran Deposition)

Should be an interesting Tuesday night at the council chambers.


[1] Kenny the Printer was acquired in 2009 by Orange’s Western Printing Group, based in the city of Orange and owned by David Smith. Related companies include American Pacific Mailing ServicesPacific Promotional ProductsBritefoil Tag and Label, and The Label Factory.

[2] Pages 52-54 of the second Stu Mollrich deposition show that Forde & Mollrich awarded Great Park printing contracts to Kenny the Printer on a “sole source” basis.  These jobs were each under $5,000 each

[3]   Larry has retained Los Angeles lawyers Sturmwasser &  Woocher.   See attachment C (p 21)  for an example of their handiwork.  Also, Fred Woocher was Loretta Sanchez’s lawyer, and Barbara Boxer’s choice for a federal judgeship.

About Tyler in Irvine

Twenty Year Irvine Resident. Native Texan and proud Longhorn. Pro-Choice Ron Paul supporter. "Do I contradict myself? ... then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes." - Walt Whitman