Irvine divorce lawyer and finance commissioner Jeff Lalloway has been asked to resign by Irvine Council member Christina Shea a week before election day TheLiberalOC has learned.
Lalloway is Shea’s representative on the Irvine Finance Commission; Shea has allegedly asked for Lalloway’s resignation for missing too many meetings and for making untrue statements in campaign literature. It’s not clear what the untrue statements are.
Lalloway’s failure to attend Finance Commission meetings is a violation of the City’s requirements for attendance. Shea laments the timing of her request, according to sources, but seems confident in her decision to seek Lalloway’s resign. Sources say Shea informed members of the city council in an email.
The LiberalOC has requested a statement from Mr. Lalloway on the matter.  Â
Shea is one of several Irvine Republicans listed as endorsements on Lalloway’s new mailer that came out today.
Dan, since you will be getting comments from Jeff Lalloway, I know pretty much what he is going to say in an attempt to rationalize his firing.
First he will accuse Shea of being in the pocket of the City Unions, which is a joke at best. Since Shea has been in the Council minority for the past eight years, she had little to no influence over Council actions relating to salaries and benefits of employees. Additionally, all the Public Employee Unions in Irvine are lightweights and while giving endorsements, rarely if ever give money, primarily because of campaign contribution limits. Larry Agran is the one who has the Public Unions firmly under his influence and not Christina Shea. It should be noted that while Lalloway is now making a big to do about high salaries, benefits and retirement of Public Employees, he was standing there at the head of the line with his hand out when it was endorsement time. Eureka, could this be a case of “sour grapes” on Lalloway’s part?
Lalloway’s other allegation will be regarding those taxpayer funded perks received by Christina Shea, especially her car allowance. As I recall all Council members, Department Heads and many Manager level people receive a vehicle allowance from the City. It is par for the course in all municipal governments and many private sector companies. They get this allowance in lieu of mileage for their personal vehicle used for City business. When you factor in gasoline, insurance, maintenance and wear & tear on the vehicle, the amount paid by the City is not out of line. Sorry Jeff, you are going to have to do better than this to deflect your own lack of honesty, integrity and ethics.
Now let’s get down to the real reason of why Lalloway finds himself between the rock and the hard place. Back in June and July of this year Christina Shea and Steven Choi were trying to pull together a conservative team to run against the Agran Slate. A number of meetings were held by Shea and Choi, with advisors to identify potential candidates. Shea’s Finance Commissioner, Jeff Lalloway was one of those candidates. Then, Lalloway went off on a tangent, without Shea’s knowledge and appeared before the Irvine School Board. Lalloway, identifying himself as an Irvine Finance Commissioner promised the Board that if elected, he would give the School District 5 million dollars. Shea found out about this in the media. Such a proposal clearly violates any concept of Republican fiscal responsibility and Shea, Choi and the advisors were angry. We were at a meeting and Christina was trying to tactfully explain to Jeff the error of his ways in pandering to the School District. Lalloway didn’t seem to be getting the message, so I looked him straight in the eye and said, “Jeff if you were my Commissioner and pulled a bone headed stunt like that, you would have already been fired.” Without question, Christina Shea is much more tolerant than I and she kept Jeff in his position and continued to support him for Council. I pegged Lalloway as an ego centered, pseudo-conservative and in no uncertain terms is a Republican in Name Only (RINO). Since I neither believed or trusted Lalloway, I cut the cord with the steering group for future meetings and support. Having known Christina Shea for over twenty years, I can tell you that she is as conservative as anyone ever serving on the Council. She has consistently challenged Larry Agran at every turn and has the scars to prove it. Lalloway and his backers who now want to do damage control at the expense of Shea are out to lunch.
As the election season progressed, despite repeated efforts of Shea and Choi, Lalloway refused to join with other Republicans, Chris Gonzales and Lynn Shott in a team approach against the strong Agran Slate. That would have been ok, had Jeff focused his campaign efforts on Agran, Kang and Farivar. Instead, Lalloway brought in another RINO, Adam Probolsky, who many think does behind the scenes hatchet work for Agran. They launched a personal attack, not on the opponent Larry Agran, but rather on Republican candidate Lynn Schott. Such actions are inexcusable in any political party play book. This is another strike for Lalloway. As the Law of Karma dictates, “What goes around, comes around.” Lalloway got a taste of his own medicine last week with the slate mailer on his history of failing to pay his loans. While it happened many years ago, it goes to the character of the person involved. It just provides more reasons not to support Lalloway, as much as we all want change, why replace the bad, with the just as bad? Now, I don’t know exactly why Shea fired Lalloway, other than she probably finally saw the same things about Lalloway that I had seen from the start. It was an action, long overdue.
Pat – none of this surprises me, but the nugget you threw in here that Lalloway hired Adam Probolsky in particularly interesting since Adam writes a column for the OC Register’s Irvine World News and wrote a particularly flattering column about Jeff. In what capacity does Probolsky work for Lalloway?
Lt.,
First of all, please get back to work or stop taking my taxpayer money for NOT working and using those funds to conduct political activity.
On the charge that I am somehow ‘working’ for Lalloway…not true. No more so than I am working for Schott or Aksoy or Bijan–all of whom I have given advice to when they or their campaigns asked for it.
Adam, for an alleged political consultant, you are really out of touch. I haven’t worked for you since 2002, when I retired from the City of Irvine. You would have known that had you been helping Team Irvine-2008, try and unseat the Agran Machine. Instead, you were too busy doing a hatchet job on Margie Wakeham, the candidate who would have likely beaten Larry Agran, except for your last minute hate mail. Before you accuse Christina Shea of aiding and abetting Larry, you better take a hard look in the mirror.
Everyone knows that you and Lalloway are joined at the hip. Guess you thought that if he were elected, you could get your Planning Commission seat back. While you start off your comments accusing me of misuse of my position, there is an old saying, “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.” Didn’t you use your Planning Commission seat to generate business for your consulting company and in fact was fired for that? Oops, something else you and Lalloway have in common.
How have you helped Lalloway you asked? For openers, you spent considerable time lobbying at the Republican Party not to endorse Lynn Schott in the Council race. Since Lynn is the most conservative person in the race, and there are two seats available, I wondered about that. The rumor was that you guys are conceding one seat to Agran and are hell bent for leather to get the other seat. Some of us thought you might have even cut an under the table deal with Agran, but the slate mailer on Lalloway last week, put that rumor to rest. Then there is the telephone poll you did asking the pointed and derogatory questions about Lynn Schott and Shiva Farivar. I hate to tell you, but on latent hatchet jobs, but if you wanted to point the finger at Larry Agran for the poll, you shouldn’t have included his running mate. Then I understand your wife is in the thick of Lalloway’s campaign and attends all their strategy meetings and helps raise funds. Has she been able to get any money from any of your old Planning Commission contacts? Bottom line Adam is, you can’t B/S another B/S artist. You and I both know that you are up to your ears in Lalloway’s campaign. A week from today, it won’t matter one way or the other. Unless there is a sizable Republican tidal wave at the polls, Larry Agran will walk away with a 4-1 majority on the Council. Play your cards right and maybe Shiva Farivar will appoint you to the Planning Commission.
Please pay close attention, Pat Rodgers just finally admitted that he is a “BS Artist.” Also, please see the Irvine World News this morning where the overstuffed Meter Maid took out an ad and appeared in IPD uniform. SO LTLoser hasn’t worked for the IPD since 2002 (see his comment), yet thinks it is appropriate to appear in an ad in his uniform? The hypocrisy is unbelievable.