The state of the city.
The state of news.
How to help.
By Jacob Levy, editor and publisher
The state of the city of Irvine in one word is…exceptional. Safe streets, strong schools, lots of entertainment, dining, and community events in which to participate, Irvine has it all.
Because of this, many people don’t closely monitor what is going on in our city. Similarly, political candidates usually create issues designed to appeal to large numbers of people in hopes of getting attention.
You can see this in play every two years during the elections in Irvine. Two years ago, many of the people who approved the majority of the recent developments in the city did a complete 180 and tried to convince the voters of Irvine that there is now too much development and that they would stop it.
There was even a pledge of a moratorium by several candidates who themselves had approved thousands of housing units which were protected by agreements with the city, rendering a moratorium next to useless. BUT, it got headlines and it fed into a simple message that voters could understand.
No one votes for more traffic, yet people want economic development, opportunities for growth, and the continued high levels of service the city provides.
In a city like Irvine, where everything is so good, during each election, our mailboxes fill with glossy political mailers trying to reduce the vote for city leadership to simple-to-grasp personal attacks on the other candidates. All of the candidates are in favor of safety, schools, and high levels of service, so the campaigns resort to using fear tactics like over-development or alleged toxic contamination or other issues designed to move voters.
The fact is that our city has had two very different factions running it over the years and the end result for Irvine residents has been largely good. The difference is in the minutiae and margins.
Do we believe that the Great Park is a toxic contamination site? We don’t. But, if we do, then we must also believe that the group warning all of us of this was asleep at the switch for the eight years that they controlled the path of the park’s design and development.
We hear concerns about the health and safety of the park, but the scare tactic will backfire because the people who were in charge of safety and were responsible to do something about it are the very same people now using the issue to try to wrestle back control of the city council.
This is just one example of how city politics play out, but there are many.
Irvine’s new city council majority voted to end the Living Wage ordinance that was enacted by the previous council. That ordinance required city contractors who held contracts over $100,000 to pay their employees a wage over the minimum wage anywhere they do business.
Faced with a new bid for the city’s janitorial contractor, the council realized that removing this requirement could save the city several hundred thousand dollars per year and open the bid up to contractors who did not want to have one city’s policy govern everywhere they worked.
Immediately after ending this “living wage” ordinance, the current city council was painted as being opposed to the minimum wage by the former council and their supporters.
Obviously, the minimum wage was never at stake here since the city of Irvine could never reduce the requirement below federal or state minimums.
Notwithstanding this, the political mail piece masquerading as a newspaper made its May 31, 2015 headline: “City Council Votes To Cut Irvine Minimum Wage.” This is yet another example of how they are twisting issues to manipulate the citizens of Irvine.
So the state of the city, no matter what anyone may tell you, is good.
What can you do to help?
1. Read the Irvine City News and tell your friends and neighbors about Irvine’s newest independent publication.
2. Follow us on Facebook.
3. Sign up for our e-alerts.
4. Advertise with us and support the advertisers who do. With new technologies, it isn’t as expensive as it once was to produce a publication like this, but it still costs money and we need your support to continue to provide Irvine readers with unbiased articles.
5. Research the issues and don’t take any publication’s version of the facts as the truth without verifying.
6. Get involved in all of the wonderful things that the city of Irvine has to offer (for some suggestions, see the Calendar section, 10 Things to Do in Irvine this month)
Because of this, many people don’t closely monitor what is going on in our city. Similarly, political candidates usually create issues designed to appeal to large numbers of people in hopes of getting attention.
You can see this in play every two years during the elections in Irvine. Two years ago, many of the people who approved the majority of the recent developments in the city did a complete 180 and tried to convince the voters of Irvine that there is now too much development and that they would stop it.
There was even a pledge of a moratorium by several candidates who themselves had approved thousands of housing units which were protected by agreements with the city, rendering a moratorium next to useless. BUT, it got headlines and it fed into a simple message that voters could understand.
No one votes for more traffic, yet people want economic development, opportunities for growth, and the continued high levels of service the city provides.
In a city like Irvine, where everything is so good, during each election, our mailboxes fill with glossy political mailers trying to reduce the vote for city leadership to simple-to-grasp personal attacks on the other candidates. All of the candidates are in favor of safety, schools, and high levels of service, so the campaigns resort to using fear tactics like over-development or alleged toxic contamination or other issues designed to move voters.
The fact is that our city has had two very different factions running it over the years and the end result for Irvine residents has been largely good. The difference is in the minutiae and margins.
Do we believe that the Great Park is a toxic contamination site? We don’t. But, if we do, then we must also believe that the group warning all of us of this was asleep at the switch for the eight years that they controlled the path of the park’s design and development.
We hear concerns about the health and safety of the park, but the scare tactic will backfire because the people who were in charge of safety and were responsible to do something about it are the very same people now using the issue to try to wrestle back control of the city council.
This is just one example of how city politics play out, but there are many.
Irvine’s new city council majority voted to end the Living Wage ordinance that was enacted by the previous council. That ordinance required city contractors who held contracts over $100,000 to pay their employees a wage over the minimum wage anywhere they do business.
Faced with a new bid for the city’s janitorial contractor, the council realized that removing this requirement could save the city several hundred thousand dollars per year and open the bid up to contractors who did not want to have one city’s policy govern everywhere they worked.
Immediately after ending this “living wage” ordinance, the current city council was painted as being opposed to the minimum wage by the former council and their supporters.
Obviously, the minimum wage was never at stake here since the city of Irvine could never reduce the requirement below federal or state minimums.
Notwithstanding this, the political mail piece masquerading as a newspaper made its May 31, 2015 headline: “City Council Votes To Cut Irvine Minimum Wage.” This is yet another example of how they are twisting issues to manipulate the citizens of Irvine.
So the state of the city, no matter what anyone may tell you, is good.
What can you do to help?
1. Read the Irvine City News and tell your friends and neighbors about Irvine’s newest independent publication.
2. Follow us on Facebook.
3. Sign up for our e-alerts.
4. Advertise with us and support the advertisers who do. With new technologies, it isn’t as expensive as it once was to produce a publication like this, but it still costs money and we need your support to continue to provide Irvine readers with unbiased articles.
5. Research the issues and don’t take any publication’s version of the facts as the truth without verifying.
6. Get involved in all of the wonderful things that the city of Irvine has to offer (for some suggestions, see the Calendar section, 10 Things to Do in Irvine this month)