Irvine GOP Gathering Last Night

Last night the two Irvine GOP groups, The Irvine Republican Council and South Coast Republican Forum(affectionately named "Scruffies") got together over at the Irvine Duck Club. It was a chance to get some updates from our local elected representatives on what is happening up in Sacramento, Irvine City Hall, and the Irvine School Board.

The California budget update was given by State Senator Tom Harman. He told us that the Republicans are holding firm on the budget. They are holding out for a balanced budget...as they should and are to be commended for it.

Assemblyman DeVore gave us an update on his initiative to end the ban of building new nuclear power plants. He made the point that for California to meet its growing demand for electricity, the state is going to have to start generating more power. Since California has passed very restrictive greenhouse gas emissions regulations, the only way to get the power we are going to need is by building some more nuclear power plants. Chuck has shown great leadership on this issue. We are not going to meet our growing power needs through solar, wind, or hydro-electric power. Nuclear is the most cost efficient way to accomplish this and the most enviro friendly to do it.

Christina Shea told us what has been going at City Hall. It is something that all Irvine citizens should be embarrassed about. I don't know where to start. First we have a total lack of respect by Larry, Beth & Suhkee for the way they treat Christina & Steven at Council meetings & Great Pork board meetings. They are running Irvine like a dictatorship. Christina related a few stories about her dealings recently with Mayor Krom that everyone in the room just shaking their heads in disgust. Evidently, Mayor Krom went off on a behind the scenes profanity laced tirade against Christina for having the gall to ask questions during GP board meetings. The current makeup of the Council majority is bought and paid for by real estate developers. They are all in for the almighty dollar. The have been getting their way on almost every project to come before the Council, traffic or quality of life be damned. It's a pay to play scheme if you will. As some may have noticed, you can't drive through Irvine anymore during rush hours without encountering some form of gridlock and it is only going to get a lot worse with the current projects in the pipeline. She also spoke about the mandate from the league of cities that Irvine build 21,000 units of low income housing. She said it was the league of cities way of exacting some retribution for us not building an airport at El Toro. I find it richly ironic that we fought tooth & nail not have the airport built at El Toro because of all the traffic it would have brought, but we're now building thousands of high density housing projects that essentially are going to have the same or worse effect on traffic. The law of unintended consequences at work or Murphy's Law I guess. Until people get fed up and start become activists for change, we will not get any change.

Myself, Anthony Quo, and Zac Morgan all had a chance to put in a plug for our Presidential preferences. Anthony spoke about Mitt Romney. Zac was pimping for Mike Huckabee and I completely flubbed my pitch for Ron Paul. Note to self: be a little more prepared next time. Oh well.