When will Irvine conduct a Forensic Audit of the Forensic Auditors?

Larry Agran
Larry Agran, Irvine City Council
Larry Agran
Larry Agran, Irvine City Council

There’s a special meeting of the Irvine City Council today to discuss a possible lawsuit of former council member Larry Agran to compel testimony in the investigation of the Great Park Forensic Audit?  Agran apparently missed a scheduled meeting and requested information about lines of questioning in advance.  And thanks so much for holding a special meeting in the middle of a business day those alleged champions of transparency.

At what point does this incompetent city council majority start asking hard questions of the auditors and investigators of this taxpayer-funded political witchhunt to get their act together?  The original audit was under a quarter million and was supposed to take about three months — but HSNO never contacted Ken Smith, the Park’s Designer, or Forde & Mollrich, the Park’s PR counsel, until about a week before the final report was due.  HSNO was supposed to provide monthly updates and never did. The cost is now close to $1.5 million.

This audit/investigation has been going on for about 20 months now; HSNO likes the interview approach where the subject doesn’t have ready access to records to answer question in depth.  This Republican Council majority — with a special two person star chamber of Christina Shea and Jeff Lalloway managing the investigation — could have deposed Larry Agran while he was still on the city council with the benefit of staff and easy access to copies of contracts and records.

Why wasn’t Agran, Forde & Mollrich, and Ken Smith the first people deposed?

This is incompetence by the chosen vendors of the audit and investigation at its finest and Irvine taxpayers are paying for it all.  Because it’s not enough to beat Larry Agran at the polls.  There’s a desperate need to find some criminal act which, if it did exist, would have been exposed in the last election cycle.

Dick Ackerman’s Irvine Cares group put out this email recently: suddenly the Park wasted $250 million?  Where did that number come from?  Amazing how lies just roll off the tongue…..

Dear Irvine Neighbor,

The city council majority has shown great courage in auditing ten years of Great Park expenditures. They are in the home stretch of the audit with one important person yet to be deposed – former Mayor and Great Park honcho Larry Agran.

Harvard trained lawyer Agran has recently “lawyered up” to stall his deposition. Originally scheduled for last Wednesday, Agran’s lawyer said he couldn’t attend because of a scheduling conflict in Laguna Woods. Really? Agran’s known about the deposition for over a month. Agran also wants you to pay for his lawyer – apparently his Harvard law degree isn’t sufficient.

Over $250 million was spent by the Agran city council with very little to show for the money. The Orange Balloon, reams of ever-changing plans, and smiling consultants are the only tangible result of the money. It’s time to end this dark chapter of Irvine’s history.

But we can’t until the former political boss of the Great Park gives his story. You can help by emailing the city council (irvinecitycouncil@ci.irvine.ca.us) and tell them to sue Larry Agran if necessary to compel him to testify at his deposition. Let’s tell Agran that he’s not above the law and needs to comply with the same laws you and I live under.

Hey Dick, let’s apply laws broken by the GOP with all the dark money that flew into the last two elections in Irvine.  Could your group hold up to the scrutiny of a real investigation?  I always love how the word “Harvard” is a pejorative for Republicans.

9 Comments

  1. Comes now Dan Chmielewski, pretending to be an authority in all things auditing to tell the auditors how to do their jobs. Perhaps the auditors should tell you how to write a left-wing hit letter without lying. Oh wait. That would be impossible.

    The purpose of interviewing Larry the Liar after everybody else is because Larry was in charge. Hello! This isn’t hard. You just have an agenda, a far left-wing agenda like Larry Agran, and Barack Obama, an extremist liberal tax-and-spend, the hell with America agenda. Like your two favorite Harvard graduates.
    By the way, your snide comment on Republicans obviously overlooks the fact that President Bush earned an MBA degree from Harvard Business School. Al Gore flunked out of Vanderbilt Divinity School, and earned a grade of “D” in his only science class. So naturally Gore is an authority on all things scientific, particularly the global warming scam.

    • Alan —
      if you really want to look at a president who cut spending, I point you to Bill Clinton who left office with a great economy after Bush I only to have Bush II screw things up by placing two wars on a credit card while cutting taxes in the middle of two wars — something that was never done before in our history.

      As far as W at Harvard goes; I lived in Boston for nine years. He got what was referred to as “Gentlemen’s C’s” — a passing grade for below passing performance. And Bush’s MBA did him little good in the private sector; virtually every business venture failed and needed bailouts from his daddy’s rich friends. I suggest you read Molly Ivins great book “Shrub” for the documented evidence.

      The original contract of the audit was not followed. There were no 30 day status reports. That project is now 6 times over budget and they have to rely on a gotcha moment in a deposition. And your taxpayer dollars are paying for it.

      • Dan, you only lie when you type, or your lips move.

        Virtually every big name Democrat in Washngton supported taking Saddam Hussein out, and going after the terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. Here are your fellow liars in their own words, not that facts mean anything to you:

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwqh4wQPoQk

        You liberals, including your hero Larry Agran, oppose:

        The Constitution, in particular the Second Amendment,
        “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” most particularly in your defense of butchering unborn babies, 37,000,000 of them, due to Norma McCorvey’s lie that she was “raped” – she was not.

        You liberals care so little about innocent unborn babies, and pretend that your one word “choice,” trumps the rights of the grandparents, the father, and the baby. Utterly shameful, disgraceful. You defend mass murderers from the death penalty, while consigning millions of babies to death purely out of mothers’ convenience. You’re bigger torturers and killers than ISIS by far.

          • Dan, English is obviously your second language. Yes Republicans do care about babies once “they’re” born. They’re is a contraction of “they are.”
            In contrast, “their” is the possessive form of “they.”

            Newborn babies are the responsibility of their mothers and fathers. Didn’t you even know that, Dan? When mothers and fathers both refuse to take responsibility, many grandparents step in, and aunts and uncles.

            I’m just wondering where you stand on fathers of babies being held accountable and responsible for child support for eighteen years.

            Oh that’s right. “Responsibility” isn’t something you liberals show the least concern about.

            In today’s OC Register, News 10, Samantha Green, 23, of Woodland, California, pled not guilty to murdering her newborn infant. How could the state bring murder charges against a mother killing her baby? You Democrats call that ‘choice.” You say “It’s her body, her choice.” Are you going to spend your money in her defense, Dan?

            Incidentally, Scott Petersen is in prison for two counts of murder, killing his wife and his unborn son. Wasn’t killing the baby his “choice” too?

            • Since we’re playing grammar police, the word you’re searching for in the second to last paragraph of your comment is “pleaded” not “pled.” But I won’t accuse you of using English as a second language.

              So glad you brought up personal responsibility in the context of pregnancies. You see, liberals have push for better sex education, better and easier access to contraceptives, and policies the make abortions safe, legal and rare. Republicans fight sex education in the schools, are against access to contraceptives, and some pro-lifers have gone as far as shooting doctors who perform abortions while those doctors attend church. You seem to think outlawing abortion will stop it. It will just move to back allies where women will die.

              I really don’t see where you’re headed with the Scott Peterson discussion, but he’s probably a Republican from the Central Valley area…Fresno I think.

              For what it’s worth, there are plenty of democrats who are raising kids. I think every child should be a wanted child. I have two. Can’t imagine life without them.

              But tell me, how do you react if you discover your child is gay? I’m guessing you’d pick shunning or conversion therapy to pray the Gay away. Am I close?

              • “Pled” is the correct word according to 67% of attorneys.
                http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/publications/solosez/PleadedVsPled.authcheckdam.pdf

                You continue with “Democrats have push (sic).”

                This is particularly noteworthy because you sanctimonious, arrogant, condescending (but I repeat myself) liberals are always pretending to be so smart, so intelligent, so scientific, and you claim that Republicans are stupid knuckle-draggers. So how does it feel to be hoist with your own petard, dummy?

                1. Babies are loved, once they are born. Most mothers love and respect them upon learning that they are pregnant. Unfortunately you liberals have brainwashed so many with your peer pressure and talking points, that millions now call the slaughter of innocents “choice.”

                2. Liberals are destroying America. Destroying it. You’re just too dishonest to admit as much.

                Trying to have a conversation with a liberal is absolutely futile. It’s like trying to reason with evil. Liberals oppose virtually everything our Founding Fathers believed in and established in our Constitution, from life, to liberty, to bearing arms as protection from government abuse and control – a hallmark of the left. Abuse and control of others. Shove it down everyone else’s throat, and no smoking in here! Or out there.

                • Typing on an iPad is less than ideal; I promise not to engage you further unless I’m typing from my PC as opposed to my iPad which sometimes inserts incorrect words or leaves letters out. Sometimes, letters tapped on the keys don’t quite make it. As to “pled” and “pleaded,” the AP Stylebook and Columbia Journalism Review say you’re still wrong: http://www.cjr.org/resources/lc/pleadguilty.php

                  Liberals are smart, intelligent and scientific. I wouldn’t call you a knuckle dragger, but a mouth breather seems more apt.

                  I do not disagree with the first 2 sentences of #1. But I cannot tell a woman what she should do with her body. Would you advocate a woman pregnant from rape and/or incest should carry the child to term? What about a child with severe physical problems? And what about if the life of the mother were endangered? There are no easy answers. But happy to see you didn’t contest the Republicans/Conservatives are against quality sex education in schools, better birth control, or use of birth control technology by teens. The number of abortions in this country is down dramatically because of these three things. I’ll also ask Alan if you were married to the first woman you ever had sex with at the time. You certainly began married life as a virgin and slept with no one else prior to meeting Mrs. Travis? Or are you just a hypocrite?

                  2. Liberals are destroying America? Unemployment is 5.5% nationally with every state reporting increased job growth last month. The stock markets are booming. More people have health insurance than ever before. Freedom to marry the person you love even if they are of the same gender will soon become the law of the land via a Supreme Court ruling. Liberals are fighting to protect the environment to leave this planet in better shape than we found it. But we’re destroying America? please tell me how?

                  Trying to have a conversation with you is futile. Liberals are not evil; nor are conservatives. But as a Liberal, I don’t believe we’re truly free until our rights are no longer open to negotiation (gay marriage for example), and when women and minorities no longer have to do battle in order to have equal rights under the law. We believe everyone should have the same opportunity at a good education and to build their own future; President Obama is a great example of someone born with almost nothing and through education and hard work has achieved the American Dream.

                  Liberals don’t debate scientific fact. Climate change is real and its not a subject for debate because two scientists out of 1,000 disagree. We care about the environment sometimes at the expense of making money; because if you’ve poisoned the planet and killed off the food supply, we already know you can’t eat money.

                  Liberals take family values to the extreme — we recognize we’re all “family” on this planet. For Liberals, the term is “us.” For conservatives, it’s “I” or “me.”

                  Thanks for being a good editor and catching my typos and misused words. But comments that Liberals want to destroy America just make you look dumb. Hurry along now….you don’t want to miss the Alex Jones show on satellite radio. Don’t forget your tin hat.

  2. Why is Assemblywoman Gonzalez so intent on stopping or delaying or discrediting this audit? Some simple facts to consider:

    1. One of the main vendors of services on the Great Park that may be implicated in the looming scandal is Gafcon, Inc. of San Diego.

    2. Prior to being elected to the Assembly she worked for Gafcon, Inc.

    3. Gafcon, Inc. contributed to Assemblywoman Gonzalez’ campaign.

    Hum…you decide if there is another motive here of protecting home turf or maybe more. Maybe a lot more!

    http://ocpolitical.com/2015/03/04/to-san-diego-legislators-who-want-to-stop-or-delay-the-irvine-great-park-audit-butt-out/

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