
Normally, when the president or governor visits your city it’s considered an honor. But this is apparently not the case in Irvine. The Liberal OC has learned that Republican city leaders made an excessive demand
on the governor’s office and on State Rep Sharon Quirk-Silva’s office in an attempt to disrupt Governor Brown’s joint press conference with State Rep. Quirk-Silva over the governor’s support for the Veteran’s Cemetery and Memorial at the Great Park.
The sequence as we understand it is someone from Quirk-Silva’s office (we’re not sure if it was her assembly office or her campaign office) contacted Irvine city manager Sean Joyce about the press event. He contacted Mayor Steven Choi who then contacted Council member and Great park chair Christina Shea. We’re told Shea demanded that a $1 million bond be placed in advance of the governor’s visit and approximately $3500 for the use of folding chairs and a PA system. See the update below.
Update #2: We spoke with State Rep. Sharon Quirk-Silva this afternoon; she assures us there was no demand for a $1 million bond but someone associated with the city did ask for between $3500 to $6000 for “usage fee” which she declined (really, City of Irvine, the governor is in town and we have chairs and a PA system that have already been paid for by taxpayers, really, you want an extra fee?).
The event was short and sweet and staffed by SQS’s state office team (which took personal time for the event) and not her campaign team because SQS did not view this as a political event but an important community event. Brown told the sparse crowd when he invests state funds in a project he wants to see where its invested which is why he came to the Great Park this morning. It was a brief event — short and sweet.

“Today was an important first step in this investment by the state,” said Quirk-Silva. “It shows how Republicans and Democrats can work together on things that are truly important. We’ve come together on the water bond. We’ve come together on the rainy day fund. And now we’ve come together on the Veteran’s cemetery and memorial.”
We understood that Quirk-Silva’s office contacted Council member Larry Agran and they jointed decided to move forward with today’s event without some of the pomp and circumstance that normally accompanies a visit from the Governor.
We called Agran after getting the details and he told us, “It’s a public park after, all and the program is relatively short. The demands made by Council member Shea demonstrates a lack of respect for the governor, for Assemblywoman Quirk-Silva, and to the Veteran’s who fought so hard for this Veteran’s Cemetery and Memorial.”
We contacted the city this morning about this development and PIO Craig Reem referred us back to the Quirk-Silva campaign. We have a call into the Quirk-Silva campaign and her assembly office to get additional details which will likely come after the press conference (all calls made before 9AM).
AN UPDATE #1: Christina Shea just called to say this story was completely false and she demanded I take it down. My sources are rock solid and have never lied to me so I told her I wouldn’t and that I made it clear I wasn’t done reporting this story as I am awaiting more details from Quirk Silva’s office. She demanded to know my sources (sorry, it doesn’t work that way). And she’s directing staff to call me to tell me “the truth.” I have invited her to leave a comment on this blog instead. One additional detail, she called me from a blocked number. How did she ever get my cell phone #?
UPDATE #3: Shea still wants the story down on the grounds its a “complete lie.” Its not (Suggesting the Great Park and the City was charged $12,000 to change one word in a report is a example of a “complete lie” that she and her Republican colleagues have yet to correct). We made it clear from the get-go that we were still getting details and the story we ran this morning. We have calls into our sources for clarity on the initial charge a million dollar bond was asked for. One source stands by the information. We’re waiting to hear form another source. Both sources have been dependable and reliable over the years. I’ve invited Ms. Shea to leave a comment which she declined.
You really should stop lying Dan. Here is a statement from Irvine Public Information Officer Craig Reem…
Councilwoman Shea:
Today, I interviewed, twice, by phone Lee Nagelhout, our contractor through AMCI who worked with the Assemblywoman’s two aides yesterday morning about logistics regarding the Assemblywoman’s event with the Governor that occurred today. He only talked with them about the event. AMCI did not communicate with you in any fashion about the event. You had no communication with AMCI and I confirmed this with you and with Mr. Nagelhout. The facts are clear. You had no communication with these two staff members from Assemblywoman Quirk-Silva’s office and you had no communication with AMCI. In fact, the topic did not come up at all, in any form, in Mr. Nagelhout’s meeting with the staff members.
Really Allan, perhaps you’d like to walk back the $12,000 charge to change one word on a document. Shea has lied to me before about being paid by Katherine Daigle until I sent her a copy of the signed check.
Both sources still insist the million dollar claim was accurate. All the same, Brown was in town and our city chose to nickel and dime it. Shameful
Whatever the specific facts were, one thing is clear: Christina Shea made it exceedingly difficult for the Governor to visit.
If Jerry Brown had been republican, Shea would have rolled out the red carpet for him. The fact that get fellow city council member Larry Agran called her out for being petty and disruptive speaks volumes. It also provides internal corroboration of Dan’s story.
Christina Shea is a partisan hack.
The Los Angeles Times provides additional support for the story. According to the Times, “members of the Republican City Council majority said they didn’t know that the governor was headed for their city until a day before he arrived. Brown’s visit, they said, was a little bit inconveniently timed, given that the developer of the homes was set to host a ‘runway breaking’ event to kick off the construction of the 688-acre portion of the park.” Clearly, the FivePoint-sponsored Republicans on the Irvine Council didn’t want a Democratic Governor coming to Irvine in support of a Democratic Assemblywoman to support of a Veterans Cemetery established only because of the efforts of their arch foe, Larry Agran.
We also all know that that the man paying the bills for the Republicans’ campaign against Agran is FivePoint’s owner Emile Haddad, who opposed the Veterans Cemetery at every step of the way because he thought it would lower the prices he could charge for the ten thousand new houses and apartments he’s building — and the Republican Council approved — around the Great Park.
So we have motive, opportunity, and a proven record of the Republicans on the Irvine City Council of being completely in the pocket of big developer Emile Haddad.
I’ll say the evidence favors Dan’s story, not proven liar Christina Shea’s and Agran-obsessed blow-hard Allen Bartlett’s denials.
Great reporting, Dan. As a relative newcomer to the area, Orange County’s inhospitable welcome to the governor underscores what Republican fiefdom this is. I seem to recall an effort to declare OC a separate state.
No water. Locked buildings. Just who’s running the show over at the Great Park? Oh, that’s Shea who called me three times yesterday demanding I remove this post and getting progressively more shill with each demand.