Voice of OC (https://voiceofoc.org/tag/steven-choi/)
As websites like Airbnb have created a boom in short-term rentals, council members want to update the city’s rules on when and how private homes can be rented out. But they want to study the issue first.
Councilmembers also voted to have the phrase e pluribus unum – Latin for “out of many, one” — emblazoned in the meeting chambers. The gesture is a reminder of an ongoing effort by the council’s Republican majority to cast the city in a more conservative light.
More than a dozen political action committees have spent hundreds of thousands to keep the Irvine Republican council majority in power. The Great Park Neighborhoods developer is responsible for a large portion.
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.
The Orange County District Attorney sent a letter seeking all documents related to the city’s forensic investigation into the park’s finances.
Irvine looks at affordable housing for veterans while Villa Park considers ending its pension contract with CalPERs and Cypress studies more horse race dates at Los Alamitos.
City Council in a unanimous vote decided to request a Superior Court judge to order Stu Mollrich of Forde & Mollrich to turn over financial records.
The decision was accompanied by political bickering as the council’s Democrats, with support from some veterans, complained of being railroaded out of the process.
City Councilman Larry Agran withdraws his proposal to establish ties with the city of Nha Trang after protests from the Vietnamese community.
A forensic described double payments, political pressure, shoddy work and tens of millions of dollars in contract change orders.