Quid Pro Quo Tattler?

To build his credentials with the local political press, Irvine Tattler publisher Stephen Smith made a big deal of his political independence.  In introducing his website, Stephen wrote these two gems:

“Stephen currently holds no city office and will not work on any candidate’s 2008 campaign. His opinions are his own.”

“If enough of us speak out and demand clean government, we can change the culture at City Hall.”

Well, anyone who read the Tattler site knows Smith was a tool for Shea/Choi/Rodgers to attack the progressive slate of Kang, Krom, and Agran, and much later, Todd Gallinger even well before he became a council candidate.  With the election of Sukhee Kang as Mayor, the election of Beth Krom to City Council, Larry Agran’s re-election, and the passage of both Measure S and Measure R, Stephen Smith’s Irvine Tatler — not updated since October 29th — comes out as one of the big losers from the November 4th election.   

Yet despite insisting on his independence from Christina Shea, she’s going to reward Smith for being her attack dog by hiring him — for the second time — as her exectuive assistant. 

Having spent the last year attacking Mayor Beth Krom (who got more votes in the City Council race than Shea got in her race for Mayor), Councilmember Agran and Mayor-elect Sukhee Kang, Smith and Shea will now allow the taxpayers of Irvine to underwrite Smith’s political pastime.  This simply reinforces the notion that Christina Shea will use her position — and the city’s resources — purely for her own political advantage, and as a lame duck/termed out Council member, I’m not surprised.

I, for one, as a city taxpayer and business owner, would love to have the City Attorney’s opinion as to whether it is appropriate or ethical to hire someone to be your Council Executive Assistant while they still maintain a webiste that distorts other City Councilmembers — the ones the voters keep re-electing - online.

This brings me back to Smith’s sentence in the Tattler: “If enough of us speak out and demand clean government, we can change the culture at City Hall.”How will we achieve clean government in Irvine when the chief muckraker is working for someone who can only vote “no” on just about everything proposed to move the city forward?  As far as changing the culture at City Hall, the voters spoke loudly and clearly.  Didn’t they?

I’m also working on confirming a story that Council member Steven Choi rewarded all his city commission appointees for their work on his re-election bid by letting them all go.