We have such a wealth of examples of Larry Agran mis-managing  parks, transit projects, the Great Park  budget and balloon, and school board relations that it is easy to forget that Larry has long been expensively failing to advance the causes he professes to love.

So join me for a trip down memory lane, as we recall Larry Agran's City Vote project, Larry Agran as "Global Mayor", and Larry getting arrested as part of his own campaign for president.

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"Imagine throwing a really big party, spending $400,000, inviting a guest list of headliners - but virtually no one comes." 

That is how the Seattle Times described Larry Agrans 1996 City Vote project that was meant to redirect Presidential campaigning from rural areas like Iowa and New Hampshire to urban areas.   The idea was so seductively visionary that Larry secured $400,000 dollars from "major foundations--the Carnegie Corporation, the Joyce Foundation, the Unitarian Universalist"  and got himself on MacNeil/ Lehrer newshour,  CBS news , and Newsweek.  Fun.

But also a mis-managed fiasco.  As Stephen Hess of the  Brookings Institution noted during that MacNeil Lehrer piece,  Larry's City Vote   "Included Tumwater, Washington, population 9,976. There were two units in this vote that I couldn't even find in the World Almanac, which lists every city that has 5,000 voters."

What did Larry accomplish with national media attention and enough Progressive money to have fielded a credible Senate candidate?   He managed to antagonize the very people he needed to make his vision a reality. The New York Time piece was headlined Voting Project for Cities Finds Many Opponents.   City Vote was dead before the Iowa primary and never heard from again.

In short, City Vote was wonderful vision that allowed Larry Agran to spend other people's money but fail to advance the Progressive agenda.

But Larry Agran is not a lazy man.  In addition to his decades of service to the City of Irvine,  he was an essential member Michael Schuman's Center for Innovative Diplomacy (CID) which used to reside at 1793 Sky Park Circle, Suite F, here in Irvine.  At one point in the early 90s the CID claimed 8,000 members and its own scholarly journal, The Bulletin of Municipal Diplomacy.  The journal in quickly became defunct with essentially no measurable impact.  The Center's principals long ago scattered. Even CID's "Peacenet" computer network vanished with little to show for all the money and effort.  Peacenet was absorbed into the for-profit Earthlink, which, amusingly, was controlled by Scientologists at the time.  The Center for Innovative Diplomacy was no idle sideline for Larry; he used the CID as his platform to claim to be the "global mayor."  A visionary title, but not much was accomplished.

And of course, there was Larry Agran's 1992 presidential run.  The Seatle Times kindly called it "quixotic."   Roger Mudd, reporting on August 30, 1991, said "It does stretch credulity to think that a Jewish ex-mayor of a small suburban California town can make it."  I say: the less said about a campaign where the candidate got himself arrested  and a poster on Democratic Underground called him a nuisance, the better.

No one should be faulted for having grand visions and trying make their dreams real. I commend Larry for having the energy and courage to pursue so many of worthy dreams over the years.  But the question must be raised:  Given that Larry Agran has consistently failed to build his past visions, why does anyone think he can follow through on his Great Park vision that is already behind schedule and over budget by his own projection?