Dick Ackerman’s “IrvineCares” Calls on Beth Krom to Resign from Irvine City Council

September 24, 2015 Uncategorized 56

BethKromCartoon

Former state senator Dick Ackerman, who left Fullerton years ago for new digs in Irvine, runs this conservative Republican operative called “Irvine Cares” which provides fodder for the council majority and the Great Park “auditors” to use bogus survey results positioned as “facts” to make their case.  In retaliation for the non-partisan state auditor’s pending investigation of the Great Park Audit, a taxpayer funded political witch hunt, Ackerman is calling for Irvine Council member Beth Krom to resign and is asking anyone — even individuals who are not Irvine residents — to sign a petition calling for her ouster.

It ain’t going to happen Dick.

When I stopped laughing at the initial premise, I noted his line that “she has embarrassed the city with her mismanagement of the Great Park.”  If we’re going to call on City Council members to resign for embarrassing the city, let’s start with Mayor Steven Choi who still hasn’t apologized for his use of Photoshopped images of then-House speaker Nancy Pelosi as a Nazi SS officer or dictator Josef Stalin.  Or we can surmise that Senator Ackerman supports that sort of behavior by his fellow Republicans.

Can we ask Christina Shea to resign for leading the fight to on Measure N that repealed protections for the LGBTQ community in Irvine in the late 1980s.  From the LA Times:  “Consulting with anti-gay leaders such as Rep. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton) and Oregon activists who had opposed an executive order allowing homosexuals to become foster parents, the Irvine Values Coalition plotted a strategy that focused on homosexuality and included graphic depictions of extreme behavior.

“We tried to show we were normal people. I’m a mom with three kids and I don’t want gay pride festivals or public sex in bathrooms in my city,” Christina said.

Isn’t that an embarrassment considering Gay Marriage is now the law of the land and Shea has never apologized for leading this effort or announced any sort of evolution in her thinking?

Can we ask Lynn Schott and Jeff Lalloway to resign for voting for the repeal of Irvine’s progressive Living Wage ordinance that hurts the poorest of the working poor?  While saying she was “washed in the blood of Christ” on the dais, does Schott’s voting record prove she’s no the Christian she says she is?  Time to re-read the Bible with all those passages about helping the poor Ms. Schott and good lucking explaining your vote to working class Latinos in CD-46 why they should vote for you after you decided minimum wage was good enough for most of them.

Here’s the petition.

Please sign the petition calling on Beth Krom to resign from the Irvine City Council. She has embarrassed the city with her mismanagement of the Great Park and the squandering of $250 million.

Dear Orange County Taxpayer,

I represented Orange County and Irvine in the state legislature for 13 years during the El Toro Airport battle. Irvine taxpayers have been fleeced by Councilwoman Beth Krom and her cohort Larry Agran.   Orange County was promised a Great Park – we got $250 million in useless plans, a balloon, and a few soccer fields.

Three Orange County Grand Juries have condemned Agran and Krom’s squandering of $250 million in Great Park planning funds. A special forensic audit recently revealed the massive failure of our city government under Krom and Agran, including no-bid $100,000 per month contract for their political consultant.

Voters rejected Larry Agran in 2014, now it’s time for Beth Krom to resign. Please sign the petition below.

 

Sincerely,

 

Dick Ackerman

Chairman, Irvine Cares

State Senator & Minority Leader (ret.)

 

 

56 Comments

  1. Of course we had the definitive expose on this phony group – Irvine Cares – and its phony frontman Ackerman – with the help of our good friend KUCI personality Claudia Shambaugh – over a year ago. But linking not allowed here, you would have to google Dick Ackerman Irvine Cares.

    • expose? You had to pass through about 1,000 words of ancient history to get to the point. But that is the OrangeJucieProlix for you. Really Vern? This blog isn’t important? Yet you can’t seem to stay away.

      • To me, things that were done 4,6 years ago, that were never punished, that people try to sweep under the rug, that shine a light on the character of miscreants like Ackerman who are STILL messing with us… like the Great Fairgrounds Swindle, and the Troubling Case of the Ackerwoman… are NOT ancient history.

        But you’re right, that WAS an invaluable.masterpiece, and good on YOU for reading through it.

        • I actually skipped over most of it to get to the meat of the story the headline promised. All Linda Ackerman tried to do was run for office using a carpetbagging address for a city she’s lived in most of her adult life. I don’t care for her party or her politics but forgive me for failing to see why what she did was so awful.

  2. You shouldn’t be so dismissive of, and you shouldn’t have ignored and been no help with, The Great Fairgrounds Swindle, which was finally defeated mostly by a bunch of us Democrats, along with the occasional honest Republican such as I’ve learned to make common cause with.

    THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN, as the great Greg Ridge said, THE BIGGEST ATTEMPTED LAND HEIST IN THIS COUNTY’S HISTORY, until of course the attempted Angels Stadium lot giveaway.

    Oh, right. That you backed.

    • Sorry, Vern. Our host’s failure to engage and build upon what’s in your post just underscores that he hates OJB more than he loves the non-Business Democrat liberal Irvine City Council people who butter his bread. Had the situation been reversed, I’d have grabbed his story and ran it up the flagpole if I thought that it could do some good — but some people are made of denser stuff.

      Maybe if you just summarize some of your article’s best points here you can slip them past him.

  3. Actually, the blog post covers the single topic of Ackerman calling for Krom to resign for embarrassing the city, and provides rationale why the Republicans should resign for exmarrassing the city. It’s a blog post, not a novella.

    Would either of you two geniuses care to answer questions posed in a recent comment. Are either of you on public assistance in anyway, shape or form?

    • Already did. I’m not. I don’t care whether Vern is; he volunteers so much of his time and his skills as a musician that it simply wouldn’t bother me. Add in his skills as a muckraker, and he really should have some public foundation grant somewhere. You, in contrast, need no grant to reprint press releases predictably favorable to you patrons.

      Now you tell us why you think that it would be better to whore oneself out to people trying to steal from the commonweal than to be on public assistance. I could be on public assistance for several long lifetimes and still not do as much damage as I would contribute to if I helped the City Council majority pass the Streetcar proposal to benefit Disney. There’s no shame in the former; there’s nothing but shame in the latter.

      • “Whoring oneself out” implies money is changing hands and I’m not on anyone’s payroll like you are with CATER. We’re not talking about the Streetcar here so that’s not relevant to this conversation. Perhaps you could spend your waking hours trolling for grants for Vern to apply for; and if he is on public assistance, it would not surprise me. If he makes no effort to get off public assistance to spend his sober and awake hours chasing blogposts, that is not a Democratic value.

        • “Whoring yourself out” etc. I’ve been intensely observing poiticians, and “consultant” types like you in the OC, whoring themselves out, and it doesn’t always take a paycheck. It often just takes being made to feel important, one of the big boys or girls, and that self-worth will rush right into your head, and you will repeat whatever you’ve been told – sometimes in even slightly altered words!

          Now what’s this bullshit about being on public assistance, something I think that “vasquez” phantom initiated on some now-closed thread? Very often I feel like things here are too offensive and demeaning to respond to so I don’t. Public assistance is for folks WITH KIDS who are having a hard time. Of course that’s not me. I make thousands a month with my music, and a little less with blog ads. Not that it’s dan’s or “vasquez’s’ business. And my three sons are grown and doing really well thank you. And both of you-all can go stick your miserable heads in an oven.

          • I do not believe I ever leveled that subject at you Mr. Nelson. Nor do I know you or much about you. My question was specific and directed at Greg Diamond, who answered it,in what I believe was an honest,albeit embarassing reply.

            You guys are pot ztirrers for sure.

            • Guilty as charged on that last bit, Mr. “Vasquez.”

              It’s true that you only targeted my colleague Greg with that insulting “public assistance” inquiry, which I don’t think he should have responded to. But Dan immediately made it about both of us; and you two seem to function as a tag team.

                • Maybe it’s in part surviving thanks to the good graces of people who have already demonstrated that they like him for who he is — his talent, wit, and good heart — rather than for his bank account.

                  Since you’ve decided to get personal, it’s amusing to contemplate your own retirement strategy if you ever lost your wealth. Who would still give you the time of day? Maybe you could become a tobacco lobbyist.

                • Well thanks for the assist as usual, compadre, but I don’t think I’m relying on the “good graces” of anybody, but on doing what I do best for as long as I feel like it … and then there’s the Social Security and Medicare I’ve paid into all my life. But hey I’m a liberal … something our ‘host” wouldn’t recognize if it bit him.

                  On that note, this thread and “host” can go to hell. Handbasket or freestyle.

  4. Greg, I don’t hate OJ Blog. I don’t think much of it. Loved GSR’s takedown of you in OC Weekly. Funny stuff

    But back to point; do you think Beth Krom should resign? You’re not coming to her defense so you must.

    • Speakin-a good old Beth, the final sentence of my piece, referring to the worshipful Fleischman video of Ackerman, “watch on an empty stomach,” was stolen from what she said to me.

      But I re-read the piece – way too much time on my hands – and I see how Dan, if he read it at all and with any comprehension, was probably rooting for Ackerman most of the time. He and Jordan are that much closer to Dick’s values than anything that could be called progressive OR conservative.

      PS oh Beth resign? Hell no! Her voice is as valuable and brave on the Irvine council right now as Tait’s in Anaheim.

      • 1. Beth isn’t old. 2. You must be drunk already to even say I’m rooting for Ackerman. I skimmed your piece. You ramble. You write like a fifth grader with ADD trying to connect random facts into sense. As a reader, you lost me about a third of the way down the post for failing to deliver on the headline of the story; I stopped caring because you couldn’t make a point effectively

        • Vern: “Good old Beth …”

          Host: “Beth isn’t old.”

          Neither was “good old Charlie Brown.” It’s a vernacular expression. Honestly, sometimes I think that you may have been dropped onto earth by space aliens with a very substandard orientation guide that had many pages missing.

          Of course you don’t like Vern’s writing; you don’t like Vern. If you did, you’d be celebrating his creative verve (whether or not you perceived it.) With you, what you think about others’ writings is pretty much entirely a function of how much they’re willing to celebrate you and your political love objects. I suppose that that’s a great timesaver.

          P.S. Closing a comments section only after taking your last shots is mildly contemptible.

          • A vernacular expression, duh. You’re clueless. But one that doesn’t apply to Beth on a number of fronts.

            Comments were closed at the request of several people from Oscar’s coalition who were pissed you hijacked the thread to talk about what a GoodWill store fashionista your daughter is for $300 a year. I spent more than twice that for mattresses for Eli Home shelters. Your family should always be your first priority; with you it’s politics where it’s your way or nothing. I’d never put the family anywhere but first.

            • The thread was hijacked early on with attacks on me. And I was, there and elsewhere in the comments section, simply responding to questions — which you endorsed — posed by people who are apparently your political allies. I can review the specifics if you’d like.

              I think that you’re lying about these supposed “complaints.” There’s no shame in making such a complaint, so it is surprising that they’d still feel the need for anonymity if they’re not figments of your imagination.

                • I don’t know where you get the idea that it’s OK for Democrats to slam other people based on their presence or lack of wealth. That’s a Republican thing — specifically, a Trump Republican kind of thing. It’s ideologically noxious, yet you do it constantly. I don’t find it personally hurtful, just vile.

                  We Democrats are more likely to slam others for lacking a heart, lacking empathy, lacking an interest in the welfare of others rather than solely themselves. Ask your imaginary friends whether this makes you sound like a Democrat — or like an asshole who doesn’t give a damn about the poor.

                • I don’t give a damn about your poor asshole.

                  As for heart, empathy, or giving a damn about the poor, I do. Eli Home has two new beds courtesy of my checkbook and there’s the added benefit of helping my daughter’s theater program. Eli Home needed 77 beds a year ago..I don’t have the final count from this weekend’s sale, but 17 new mattresses have been purchased for kids who need them. Kids who have nothing.

                  What I think is ideologically noxious is you ranting about the welfare of others without the ability to reach into your own pocket to do anything about it. So yes, I give a damn about the poor and prove it via the charities I support. You just rant. Do you give a damn about the poor? Because you don’t seem to give a damn about your own family.

                • Granted, you certainly do believe in ingratiating yourself with Lorri Galloway. Did you ever get around to condemning her for her bankruptcies, by the way, based on your expressed “money is the sign of character” philosophy? She would have been fair game for you, back before she cozied up to Pringle. (Now, of course, she’d be off limits.)

            • Duh. Cretin. I was vaingloriously comparing my writing to Dostoevsky and making the point about how much goodness a sloppy lazy reader like you misses.

              But you made the point again yourself. I brought up the Bros K at random, but your dismissal of “family drama, love triangle, MEH,” shows that you never read or don’t remember Freud’s favorite novel.

              By the way I read it twice, on my own, BEFORE college, and I can run two laps in the time you run one.

              • Vern, honestly, my wife and I never agree on novels..stuff she loves, I hate and stuff I love, she could care less for; I did read it in college. Didn’t care for it…didn’t care for the characters. I’m a sloppy, lazy reader…and you know this …how? I preferred Ivan Turgenov’s work more; I also enjoyed Nikolai Gogol.

                You can run two laps to my one? Awesome. Drunk or sober?

    • I had missed your last question. No, of course I don’t think that Beth Krom should resign, dope — especially now that her dissenting voice is needed. I think that she has beenvery ill-served by some of her defenders, though. I’d be happy to have a frank private discussion with her about that, but she’d likely find aspects of it unpleasant and I doubt that it will ever happen.

  5. Okay now, what about that Anna Drive “mosquito” insult you threw out there a couple days ago, right before closing the thread, before I had figured out how I should respond? Should that be thought of as a rock that Dan C threw at me and then ran away, or do you want to repeat it?

    And yeah. Why do I come here so much lately. That IS a good question, and it’s probably related to writer’s block somehow. I just know there’s always a big prick here that I can come and kick around. I’ll leave you alone soon enough.

    • Of course it’s not true that he threw a rock at you and ran away. Have you ever seen him run? He lumbered away while you weren’t looking.

      (Note to host: IT’S A METAPHOR.)

      • When I run, I run to protect my knees and hip from injury. I might be slower than most everyone at boot camp, but I’m still faster than everyone at OJ that spends their days on the couch. Weight training, I’m one of the faster ones and have increased the weights I work with twice. Then again, accusing me of metaphorically lumbering when you get winded tying your shoes is weak sauce.

        • I’m glad I finally noticed this one; it’s got to be the funniest UNINTENTIONALLY funny thing I’ve read locally in a long while.

          Our macho braggart of a host sputters, “When I run, I run to protect my knees and hip from injury. I might be slower than most everyone at boot camp, but I’m still faster than everyone at OJ…”

          Dan must think Greg really spies on him at “boot camp.”

          That almost belongs on our masthead along with Cunningham’s “I have rarely seen such a venomous, grandiose and self-important gaggle of anklebiters.”

          Almost.

Comments are closed.