The Orange County Register’s editorial pages remain in complete denial of the county’s purple hue. In 2012, they endorsed exactly one Democrat — Orange Mayor Tita Smith, whom we’ve heard but never confirmed, failed to vote for President Obama in 2012, which would certainly explain the Register’s endorsement. In today’s edition’s, they endorse Sharon Wallin for re-election to IUSD trustee. As an Irvine resident and parent, I’m pleased the paper endorsed Wallin for re-election.
The paper also endorsed Republican Ira Glasky. Bob Vu is the only other candidate in the race. Now I’m hoping the paper endorsed Wallin because she’s a good trustee and not because they didn’t know she was a Democrat who spent a lot of time trying to get Michael Dukakis elected president in 1988.
Is Sharon perfect? No. No one is. And we still disagree on the new high school site as she was an advocate for Site A, which I still think is completely wrong. But I’ve always found her to be receptive to phone calls to hear issues out. I think she does a nice job of listening and acting on new information. Especially on the districts new technology plan which has some serious shortcomings. She’s been an effective trustee and I expect she’ll be easily re-elected. I will be casting a vote for her.
But there’s clearly a schism between Democratic members of the Irvine School Board and the Democrats on the Irvine City Council that’s carried over to the endorsement process at the DPOC. With voter registration between Republicans and Democrats approaching parity in Irvine (less than 1,000 voters), being more united makes us stronger against Republican candidates who benefit from Dark Money and love to lie their way into office. I know there are hard feelings against Councilman Larry Agran’s insistence on Site B for Great Park High, but I still believe Agran was right on that fight. I think the IUSD trustees and IUSD administration have also been lax in thanking Agran, councilmember Beth Krom and former Mayor Sukhee Kang for all of their efforts to route millions of dollars to IUSD over the years. No city budget provides more money for school districts Irvine City kids attend (and this includes TUSD and SAUSD) than Irvine and this was all done long before Republicans took control of the city council in 2012.
While we’re delighted the Register has finally endorsed a Democrat for office. They have yet to rescind an endorsement of assembly candidate Bill Brough, failed to recognize the accomplishments of Sharon Quirk-Silva in AD-65 considering she’s accomplished more in two years than previous assembly reps there did in 20, and will not likely back a Democat for any major office anywhere else. The paper will ignore any misdeeds by Republicans while chastising Democrats. It remains a sad commentary on how the paper fails to address OC as a whole.
In one of the last issues of the “OC Register” I read in June, squishy, lifestyle columnist Marcia Smith wrote a front-page piece praising the new publishers for their vision in redefining print journalism, but failed to elaborate on what that vision is. An emphasis on pay-to-play now replaces muck-racking journalism at the Register. As a result, the paper lacks intellectual rigor. If you’re not an angry, old, white man, there’s nothing in the editorial pages for you.