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Irvine City News (Irvine’s developer funded faux-newspaper) reports that the key vote on the Veteran’s cemetery will happen at a special June 6th Irvine City Council meeting.
It’s past time. Build something, already!
The special meeting is being called by Mayor Don Wagner and Melissa Fox. Don, of course, is a bog-standard OC Republican with tight ties to developer Five Points Communities. He and Christina Shea will be well-briefed on Five Points’ preferences. Melissa Fox, however, is Beth Krom‘s successor and thus would be expected to be well-briefed on the “Irvine Progressive” preferences. Interestingly, Irvine Community News & View, (the Larry Agran funded faux-newspaper) has been scathing about the proposed “land swap.” If Melissa chooses to support this swap, as her co-sponsoring the special meeting suggests, she will be showing real independence on this issue. It’s almost like Melissa cares more about getting getting a Veteran’s Cemetery built than political point-scoring.
Larry Agran is right about one thing: Five Points is maneuvering to squeeze every last dollar out of Great Park. However, that doesn’t have to be a bad thing if that means they get on board with building something rather than fighting everything. The key, of course, will be writing a tight agreement that holds their feet to the fire.
I’ll be at the meeting. In the meantime, I look forward to Greg’s analysis .
[Ed. Note: Greg’s analysis will be forthcoming! Meanwhile, this is has now been voted to become your Weekend Open Thread — talk about this topic or whatever else you’d like within reasonable bounds of decency and decorum.]
What I’d been thinking, in my little bit of thinking about this, is that Melissa has really put herself into a powerful position here – a powerful position to demand, from FivePoint, specific and timely funding.
Because obviously Shea and Wagner won’t do anything but take orders from the developer.
Either “has” or “had” done so; it’s not clear what she can do at this point when it comes to new demands.
Don – absolutely. He barely ran a campaign; just had paid consultants generate endless mailers for him. I consider Don a wholly-owned subsidiary of Five Points Communities — but I would never put such a comment in print. 😉
Christina has been carrying water for Five Points on this one. But it’s unclear to me to what degree she needs them vs they need her: Her electoral position is nearly unassailable, like Beth Krom’s was.
Christina is probably motivated as much to oppose all things Larry as anything else.
Over the past decade I have had to temper my words when mentioning Don Wagner, as a person very close to me worked under him, and feared that critical writing from me might result in revenge against him/her.
That’s kind of enough said, right there. He is that kind of asshole.
“Christina is probably motivated as much to oppose all things Larry as anything else.”
Ironically I observe that anyone close to Larry is motivated to oppose all things FivePoint.
This is why I slightly lean toward the Land Swap. All arguments for both sites seem about equal. But then you realize that one of the big arguments against the Land Swap is not wanting to bring any kind of joy to the Greedy Developer. Then you realize that particular argument is kind of unworthy. Then you subtract it. Then the scale tilts, toward the Land Swap. IF enough demands are made, set in stone, on the Greedy Developer.
My only comment on the subject is that the developer controls everything in this City including the council , particularly Wagner and Shea.
Since the cemetery is not my fight, then the only item to discuss is to make sure in the contract, with the developer, is to put forth milestones and make sure that they pay for every dollar that is owed for every acre of land. Meaning, that whatever the price per acre is today ( which should be a measurement of the value of all land on the average of zip code) is clearly exchanged – whether it be land and building or land and memorial.
If the Veterans (all of the Veterans) not the ones that have been bought by the lobbyist Patrick Strader, but the families of the Veterans that gave it all for their right to have their final resting place here, then so be it.
It is time to fulfill the promise. We as a city have not done our best to perform or fulfill on our promises with our Veterans or the community. There has been too much collateral damage by the council.
I know that I perhaps say this too often, but we really DO have the best comments section in the OC political blogosphere. Generally, I can take it home to meet my mother.