The Great Brochure
Posted by: Flowerszzz | 02/29/2008 10:30 PM
First of all it is March, and almost Spring. Seems a Winter addition should come out in the Winter, ya know like December or even January...but at the risk of sounding like I am nitpicking I digress.
The oversized, full color and I am sure quite expensive 8 page mailer is beautiful. But it really does not say anything different from the last edition I got about 6 months ago. So I wonder exactly what is the point of this mailer? How much money did this cost?
It reads like an advertisement, like it is begging for you to like it. And how could it not be a good project...the brochure is soooooo nice. (sarcasm in case you missed that). On the first page, it shows a soccer player (a Latino no less), kids flying kites, and talks about how the LA Times listed the park design as one of the best in 2007...ahhh the good feelings!
The entire second and third pages and the part of the back page are devoted to the huge eyesore orange balloon that was shut down this week due to safety reasons. Ohh so warm and fuzzy.
And the rest in the middle is a bunch blah, blah,blah about all the stuff we have seen before in the last issue(s). More studies are going to be undergone, a vision statement was approved, program concepts were researched and evaluated....what the heck does any of that mean anyway? Where I come from in my past career, a government employee, that is all doubletalk for nothing has happened and nothing is happening very soon either.
But I will say this - it is a great brochure!
Mr. Ayer registered as a Republican to be electable in an interim election with no incumbents. He did...
So 6 years after Measure W passed and $200 million later, all Irvine has to show for it is lots of pretty brochures, 98% intact runways, and a grounded balloon.
They think can keep on sending pretty brochures and the public will completely overlook all the bad news about the non-existent park.
Either turn on the lights and make it an airport or pave it over with condos. Just stop pretending it is some kind of a great park!
Thank the Great Agran and Great Krom and Great Wilson for the Great Ripoff. And don't forget the Great Kranser for all the Great Lies.
Moorlach called him out at last week's Airport Working Group meeting. It's time for Measure X to take this mess back since Irvine and the south county have $200 million less to spend and Lennar is about out of business. We can put those runways back in order.
Great post.
The airport battle is over. Don't dredge up a dead battle to divert people from the real issue here.
The real issue is the corruption and cronyism at the Great Park. The Irvine Tattler has documented $65,000 in campaign contributions from Great Park contractors during the 2006 municipal election that went to a slush fund run by a former political appointee of Larry Agran. That money paid for slate mailers sent by an organization run by another friend of Agran. The mailers falsely accused councilwoman Christina Shea of being a lobbyist.
Here we are two years again, and Agran has reurrected the "lobbyist!!!!" lie. Hiding behind Beth Krom, they're spending $200,000 to hold a special election in June so voters can approve the city's anti-lobbyist ordinance.
What's wrong with that?
Well, for openers, this ordinance has been on the books for over two years. It's part of a larger ordinance called the Ethics Ordinance. So they're spending $200K on something that already exists.
What's the penalty? If a council member is found guilty of working as a lobbyist, the punishment is ... you have to talk to the city attorney! I'm not making this up. There is no other penalty.
Even worse, the ballot measure says the council can vote 4-1 to overturn the voters' decision should they approve it. So the June vote is even more meaningless.
Irvine insiders think this is just Agran setting the stage to smear Shea again with false allegations, only this time he's doing it with taxpayer money. Several Irvine residents got calls a few weeks back from a push poll asking how they'd feel about a council member who worked as a lobbyist. Shea is not a lobbyist, but Agran has been pushing this lie for two years and seems intent on doing it again.
Meanwhile, the Tattler has documented Agran's many lobbyist connections. Funny how the ordinance has nothing to say about that.
P.S. The Tattler web site address is www.irvinetattler.com. An update will be posted on Monday.
Stephen,
everyone on the pro airport side KNEW Agran and crew were corrupt well before the final airport vote. He promised no "new taxes" for his park, and months later attempted through prop 51 to take 30% of the state DMV fees for his park. Thank goodness the voters overwhelmingly nixed that tax!
Anyhow, we are not terribly surprised that Comrad Agran is not planning the park to your liking. Its too bad you are just now waking up and smelling the coffee.
The park has been a complete sham. If you want to go with reviving an airport, then you will find much more support from Agran critics on here. Keep in mind, people who are pro-airport did not and do not want a park in the first place! Even six years after the vote. So why would any of us ever care if great porkers fight amongst themselves? This would be akin to expecting McCain to take sides between Obama and Clinton.
Don't be fooled by this misleading mailer. It lists all the projects suppossedly being "considered" for the Great Park. Untrue. Virtually nothing on that list will see the light of day. Agran and his cronies have already locked in the final design. There is no room, nor traffic capacity, for features the public really wants, like a replacement for the soon-to-be-departed Verizon Ampitheatre. Instead, we'll only get the second-rate projects the developer will permit after all the housing is fully entitled. Likewise, the "Preview Park" touted in the brochure is merely another tool (like the Orange Balloon) to divert the public's attention away from the facts: there is no money to build the park, there is no business plan, and most of the $200,000,000 infrastructure money paid by the developer has been wasted on slick ads and no-bid contracts to political supporters of the Agran machine.