Despite its tranquil reputation, Irvine has bitter political divisions
The well-to-do city isn't afflicted with the crime or racial tensions usually found in big cities, but the two City Council camps fight vehemently over development, land use and fiscal responsibility.
Irvine is perhaps best known for its master-planned villages, business prowess and designation as the nation's safest city of its size, four years running.
In other words, the type of community where you'd expect to find everything running smoothly.
But that prosperous tranquillity does not extend to City Hall, where Irvine has a reputation for political turmoil.
Next week's election is no exception, with 12 candidates -- including all five members of the City Council -- wrangling for control of the council and mayor's seat and debating two local ballot propositions.
Most have aligned themselves with one of the two mayoral candidates -- Councilman Sukhee Kang and Councilwoman Christina Shea, a former mayor.
If Kang wins, he would become the city's first Korean American mayor, and the first nonwhite mayor in a city that, despite being more than one-third Asian American, is stereotyped as a homogenous enclave. Kang is a close ally of Larry Agran, a longtime councilman and key advocate of the city's development of the Orange County Great Park.
If voters give the nod to Shea, they would be throwing their support to one of the park's most vocal critics and a longtime political foe of Agran.
The race has once again put Irvine's intense political divisions into sharp relief.
In this right-leaning community, three Democrats, led by Agran, who once sought the Democratic nomination for president, maintain a well-oiled political machine. The two-member Republican opposition, led by Shea, struggles to maintain a foothold, questioning the majority's greenlighting of big-ticket projects and its ties to developers and consultants.
One of two ballot propositions to be considered by voters, Measure R, is essentially a referendum on whether the current City Council majority has effectively managed the ambitious plan to build the 1,347-acre park on the former El Toro Marine base. The effort began more than six years ago but so far features only a balloon ride and a small "preview park."
The measure would preserve City Council-approved policies and funding mechanisms for the park for the next four years and keep the project under the control of the city.
Kang said the measure is needed to "codify all the progress we have made," pledging that the city will start construction on major features of the park by spring 2009.
