This election cycle, I am hoping the voters of Irvine thrun the 3-2 council majority to a 4-1 advantage. The council minority of Christina Shea and Dr. Stephen Choi are far more interested in theatrcs than good government.
The Great Park board, which consists of all five Irvine City Council members, recently voted 4-2 with the unianimous recommendation of the Great Park CEO Search committee to suspend the search for a new CEO until January 2009. This comes on the heels of a lawsuit filed by Shea and Choi for access to all of the 150 candidates resumes and all communications associated with the search.ÂÂ
The Great Park Board had hired a recruiter for the job, and after interviewing the GPBD members on the qualities and experience a new CEO should have. The recruiter then reviewed the resumes and offered candidates that met the criteria.ÂÂ
Shea and Choi’s lawsuit, filed under the auspices of doing the whole search in some sort of a public manner, accomplished three things: it placed the confidentiality of the candidates aplying for the job at risk; it wasted the time and money spent on the recruiter who was paid for their expertise in conducting a C-level search; and it delayed the process to the point where good candidates wil move on to other opportunities or give up altogether. Oh, the Choi/Shea teams wants the board to pay their legal costs too.
At a recent City Council meeting, Choi was holding his cell phone in his hand when Mayor Beth Krom asked him to put it away; instead of doing so, Choi challenged the mayor with a “why should I?” response which the City Attorny quicked addressed for him. I wonder if students at Dr. Chooi’s school could get away with that sort of response to a teacher or administrator. I wonder who Choi was texting or getting text messages from. Talking points for the meeting?ÂÂ
It seems that whenever Choi and Shea don’t get their way, they walk out of a meeting as they did in February over a closed session discussion of the Great Park Board over what would be an open session creation of an Assistant CEO job. With legal counsel advising that the Board is operating legally, it seems that walking out of a meeting constitutes a breach of responsibility that Choi and Shea were elected to do. If both of them walk out of a city council or GPBD meeting again, they should do taxpayers a real service and resign.ÂÂ
Walking out of a meeting is something we’d see in a student council meeting among high schoolers, not a city council meeting among adults.
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Ms. Shea is a nit wit! She has been involved in Irvine politics far tooooooo long.
Shea will be beaten soundly by Suhkee Kang for Mayor, but she will remain in her council seat for 2 more years. The real problem of Irvine is Choi. He is lost with basic protocol of meetings and goverment actions. He has embarassed himself and the city on several ocassions.
Choi is already a legend for the things he says at regional boards. On San District he voted to give himself a raise in pay, then didn’t even show up (as the alternate) to stop the excessive rate increase to ratepayers. On the library board he tried to hold the library system hostage and threatened to “take Irvines tax money”. He has a dream of a monsterous Library named after himself in Irvine. He thinks the rest of the county owes it to Irvine.
Choi stood up during a league of cities meeting and asked that widening the 5 freeway in LA County should be part of Measure M! Thats right OC money spent on improving LA county freeways!
At the celebration to recognize the opening of the balloon ride Choi smiled, shook hands and had campaign pictures taken with other elected leaders. He also was handing out invitations to events for his now failed attempt for assembly. Then he turns around and denounces the event as a political stunt.
Choi just doesn’t get it and it is time for him to go back to one of his learning centers. Don’t know what the citizens of Irvine were thinking when they voted this guy in…