Friends of the Great Park

Happy Fourth of July! Today we celebrate the freedoms that we enjoy as a Country and a City and thank our local leaders for what they do for us in Irvine.

Larry Agran is at it again, trying to mislead voters with lies about his cemetery initiative. The Veterans who have been fighting for a cemetery for over a decade want people to know the truth.

Amazing leadership was shown by Councilwoman Christina Shea - Irvine, Anthony Kuo, Farrah N Khan, and Mike Carroll - Irvine City Councilmember to move forward on a Veterans Cemetery at the Great Park. Congratulations to Orange County Veteran's Memorial Park.

It was my honor to join Mayor Christina Shea and Councilmembers Farrah N Khan and Anthony Kuo to designate 100 acres of Great Park property - land valued at more than $120 million - to establish a Veteran's Cemetery on the site of the former El Toro Marine Base. The vote was 4-1. Councilmember Melissa Fox voted no. Importantly, I amended the approval resolution to remove all residential and hotel zoning from the alternate, city-owned property site considered (the "ARDA Site") which was put in place by previous councilmembers over a decade ago. The re-zoning will be considered at our August 13, 2019 meeting.
~ Mike

Mayor Don Wagner helps to open up Ducks Ice and FivePoint Arena at the Great Park. More promises delivered on.

The Agranistas slam Farrah Khan for not supporting their efforts to derail the Veterans Cemetery, Farrah Khan slams the Larry Agran puppet team of Pope, Woods, and McGill back:

"The “No on B Team”, as can be seen in forum after forum, did not have a full grasp on the issues affecting our communities. Sure, now they are easily taking the positions others have put forth and claiming their knowledge – well it’s a bit late and it is irrelevant. If the goal is to have a Veteran’s Cemetery at the Great Park, we need leadership that is willing and able to work with others, come up with strategic plans and be able to deliver. The people that voted “No on B” in June voted so because they did not trust the council’s plan, this does not equate to them wanting to vote for a team that has no plan for homelessness, no plan for affordable housing, no plan for traffic reduction and do not understand that city council members cannot provide school buses for the school district. And there is no difference in changing out one set of council members on the Irvine Community Land Trust for another group, this is absurd and sounds like a power grab. The Irvine Community Land Trust deserves to have community members with education/experience of affordable housing development on the board – independent of council members."

IUSD has been ranked No. 2 in the state for ELA and Math for the third consecutive year. The District’s state standardized assessment scores have outperformed both state and Orange County score averages, with IUSD ranking the second highest in the state for the third consecutive year among public school districts of 25,000 or more for students who met or exceeded the standards in both English Language Arts/Literacy (ELA) and Mathematics. To read more, visit http://bit.ly/2Iyw4ah.

The Great Park posted some great shots of the recent opening of the Great Park Sports Complex.

The sports park is being delivered as promised.

First games to be played at new Great Park baseball stadium It will be time to play ball Sunday, Sept. 16, at the new baseball stadium at the Orange County Great Park Sports Complex in Irvine.High school baseball games will be played at the 1,200-seat stadi…

Heard on the streets of Irvine:

Larry Agran, former career Irvine politician, has created a campaign monster in Irvine. Rumor has it that while potentially pledging political support to Katherine Daigle for Mayor and Farrah Khan and Dr. Kevork Abazajian for City Council, he is also planning to have his main anti-cemetery henchman Ed Pope run for Mayor and two other anti-Cemetery acolytes Frank McGill and Jaci Woods run for City Council. What will Irvine democrats do with so many choices for Council? Only time and his fake newspaper will tell.

Irvine City Council votes tonight on the Veterans Cemetery. Mayor Wagner, Councilwoman Shea, and Councilwoman Fox vote to uphold the Irvine Master Plan and Planning process and plan for a Veterans Cemetery in Irvine. Councilman Lalloway and Councilwoman Schott voted against the Veterans Cemetery.

Issued June 1, 2018. Estimates of the costs of the two Cemetery sites showing $50 million less at Strawberry Field site.

"We believe that proposal offers the best chance for properly honoring our nation’s veterans. That view hasn’t changed. Vote yes on Irvine’s Measure B." - OC Register Editorial Board

Vote yes on Irvine’s Measure B This one shouldn’t come as a surprise. We’ve been supportive of the veteran cemetery landswap since the Irvine City Council voted to go with developer FivePoint’s proposal in June of last year.We b…