I’m told Irvine City Council member and State Assembly candidate Steven Choi was at the launch party Saturday for the Great Park Balloon. He was passing out contribution envelopes for his race for Tod Spitzer’s soon to be vacated seat and is probably a longshot for the race based on the funds raised by some of his primary opponents.
For a guy who advocated turning control of the Great Park (along with Christina Shea) back to the county through incessant trumping of a non-enforceable grand jury report, I think showing up at a community event to have your photo taken and pimp funds for an assembly race sort of defines what kind of politician Dr. Choi is.ÂÂ
But I could be wrong.
Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia, has an entry for Dr. Steven Choi. Here it is. ÂÂ
I particularly enjoyed this paragraph: ÂÂ
Despite Irvine’s majority Republican registration, the Irvine City Council has 3 Democrats (Kang, Larry Agran, and Mayor Beth Krom) and 2 Republicans (Choi and Christina Shea). Although Choi is in the conservative council minority, he has been able to promote programs he supports and has stopped policies he opposed from being enacted. During the course of new sister city negotiations, he successfully opposed the One-China policy demanded by Shanghai‘s Xuhui government in the People’s Republic of China, which would have required Irvine to abandon its existing long-term sister city relationship with Taoyuan, Taiwan.
Let’s revisit for a second: Choi was on the trip to Shanghai. He was aware a city staffer signed a document that she shouldn’t have. Rather than take steps to correct the situation, he did nothing. He chose instead, through his inaction, to use this incident to embarass the city’s mayor and staff in an attempt to hurt the mayor politically. It didn’t work in spite on a poorly-attended protest rally at city hall featuringbused-in Tawainese from out of town, the mayor was re-elected by a margin of 60 to 40 percent. If this were a business, and Choi was an executive of the business who ddi not take proper action to correct a mistake, he would have been fired for this.
But what about the things missing from Choi’s Wiki entry?
1. As an IUSD school board trustee, he advocated and voted for huge rent increases for the Irvine Chinese School which led the School to leave its location at University High School for 20 years.
2. Choi voted against the Irvine Educational Partnership Fund when the program was launched.
3. Choi (and Christina Shea) voted twice against tough new ethics standards posed by the City of Irvine Ethics Ordiance. I am guessing because Choi had no trouble attaching his name to the Irvine Chronicle, a 2004 knock off Irvine World News campaign mailer that reprinted negatively edited copies of articles from copyrighted sources which, besides being illegal, is clearly unethical. What does Choi have against stronger ethics?
4. While so proud of his efforts to denounce the USA’s “One China” policy, Choi flatters himself a politician who will encourage trade with Pacific Rim nations. I’m sure the PRC would love to do business with him based on his record.
And Choi isn’t the only OC politician with a Wiki Reference.
Here’s Chuck DeVore’s link. Omitted from Chuck’s Wiki entry is his 2002 loss in the race for Irvine City Council and reference to the terrible cable TV spot with his dog. It also omits his efforts to preserve the El Morro community (no quid pro quo), support for Hemp Farming and Nuclear Energy, and his opposition to Gay Marriage. No reference to the word “effing.”
Van Tran and Todd Spitzer also have links (thanks for not having a referrence to “pro-criminal liberals” Todd). Larry Agran has one, but its brevity leads one to believe he had little to do with it. Christina Shea does not have one. Neither does Beth Krom. Failed Irvine Mayoral candidate John Duong has one, so we’ll see which office he’s pining for next time around.ÂÂ
And Janet Nguyen has one too, but it looks like Trung Nguyen wrote the copy and selected the awful photo of her. Trung doesn’t have one, but soon will I’m sure.
The wonderful think about Wiki is you (yes, you, the person reading it) can edit the entry. But beware, it’s not anonymous and you leave behind yoru IP address.
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Dr. Choi recently tried to get Library Board members to support his County Library dream. He has a vision of a 300,000 sqft library. When the board did not support his plan, he then threatened to “pull” Irvine’s tax money.
Dr. Choi did not realize that the portion of Irvine’s tax money is controlled by the Board of Supervisors. If Irvine chose to leave the Library Board it would do so without any funding! Or Libraries! They are owned by the County in most cities, including Irvine. The good doctor has a noble vision, the county should have a great library somewhere. But not with the money that keeps the county library system afloat.
How can this guy not fundamentally know how the Library system is funded?