About 250 people attended a farewell reception for outgoing Irvine Council member Larry Agran Tuesday night at Irvine City Hall. Running mates Melissa Fox and Mary Ann Gaido also attended and it was actually a pretty upbeat affair as the trio thanked supporters and hugged friends.
This is actually the second time Agran has left the council and one gets the impression he won’t be far from making his influence felt on the city even though he’s not in office. There’s no question Agran is polarizing — Republicans in town hate him. And they’ve wanted him gone for years. But be careful what you ask for because when you get it, what then GOP? It took an expensive, negative, and lie-filled campaign to unseat him.
But just about everyone who attended last night was there to say thanks to the man who, with Beth Krom, stopped the El Toro airport, passed progressive policies for the environment, public education, public safety, city transportation, and economic development to city government that has made Irvine a gem in OC and in California. Agran and his family were all smiles.
The vibe of the crowd was 2016 is a new opportunity — its a presidential election year with higher Democratic turnout anticipated. We expect voter registration of Democrats to leapfrog Republicans by then and its expected the Republican city council will dismantle several popular programs that they view was a waste of taxpayer dollars.
Common scene will be in short supply when Larry is gone!
Thanks, Dan, for your kind words and for consistently upholding the decent, enlightened liberal values that have been key to our City’s success.
Larry Agran
Thank you Larry. Have a wonderful holiday season.
Even Devore from Texas wrote nasty things about Larry. Devore should be concern about the problems of big Texas cities, lots of minorities behind whites in income in Texas as a whole. Irvine is a growing city and its not growing for the republicans its a mixed group kind of purplish so t Democrats have another shot. I predict that all three major cities in OC are mainly Democrat by 2025 because of urbanization in Anaheim and demographic changes and demographic changes in Irvine.
The County politics well changed in the 2020’s since the strongest group voting Republican will die off from old age. Republicans 50 and over are 51 percent in the county versus 29 percent under 30 Chaning demographics are more urbanization for cities like Anaheim and the older northern Cities more condo and apartment living.
Thank You Larry!!!!!!!