Voice of OC (https://voiceofoc.org/tag/melissa-fox/)
The Irvine City Council has directed city staff to develop an ad campaign, encouraging residents to buy from Irvine stores to help offset the ongoing drop in sales taxes caused by online shopping.
Irvine City Councilman Jeff Lalloway said Monday he will ask the City Council to approve Orange County’s first veterans cemetery in its original site near the center of the Marine Corps Air Station El Toro after voters overwhelmingly rejected a land swap that would have moved it to strawberry fields near the 5 and 405 freeways.
Irvine, Huntington Beach and Laguna Niguel Tuesday decided to fight plans by the Orange County Board of Supervisors to build homeless shelters in the cities on county-owned land.
Irvine voters will decide June 5 if they want to keep the ability to vote on city development projects after Mayor Don Wagner proposed two ballot questions, including one that would exempt developments approved by the City Council from voter approval.
Orange County’s long-anticipated veterans cemetery took a big step forward in 2017 with a developer’s land swap that moved it from the heart of the former El Toro Marine Air Corps Station to strawberry fields near the junction of the 5 and 405 freeways. But enough voters signed a petition to move it back to the main base that the city council will have to decide Jan. 9 whether to reverse itself or put the issue on the ballot.
The Irvine City Council is rumored to have scheduled a closed session discussion of the veterans cemetery during its Sept. 26 meeting. The discussion reportedly will include using 100 acres of the veterans cemetery land for hotels, homes or other commercial purposes until the land is needed to bury veterans.
Several Anaheim, Santa Ana, Irvine and other city council members and candidates reported robust fundraising for the first six months of 2017, according to the latest campaign finance disclosures.
The city’s Republican council majority had ordered an investigation into votes by two commissioners who also happened to be on a competing slate of council and mayoral candidates.
Republican Councilman Jeffrey Lalloway points to a lobbyist’s email as evidence that votes on an apartment project might have been tainted by campaign contributions. Democratic Councilman Larry Agran says the accusation is just another election season political attack.