Last fall, when more than 19,000 mostly Democratic Party voters waded through all sorts of interference led by a sitting city council member to sign a petition to let Irvine voters decide the location of the Veteran’s Cemetery, charges and counter-charges about honesty, facts and alternative facts were flying, and names were called. It was ugly, and often times voters scattered rather than sign anything when two sides were shouting.
Irvine voters delivered more than enough valid signatures to place Measure B on the ballot this June. And the ugliness manifesting itself in the form of the first know citation issues for violating Irvine’s Free Speech Ordinance — to the OC Veteran’s Memorial Park Foundation’s Bill Cook of Mission Viejo. His fine was a $100 slap on the wrist. The copy of his $100 fine is here BillCookFreeSpeechOrdinanceFine. The fine was issued at the end of February and documents were provided to the female volunteer in this case in late April.
Last fall, I witnessed Cook harass Harvey Liss, repeatedly shouting that Liss claimed to veteran (he is not and never said he was, and no matter how many times you correct him, Cook refused to believe it). Cook claims that Liss was guilty of “stolen valor” (he wasn’t). And we were both “candy asses” for not having served in the military. I suspect Cook preyed upon Liss due to Liss’s small stature. One afternoon at Target on Barranca in Irvine, I played bodyguard for Liss and while Cook ranted and raged, he didn’t physical intimidate Liss because I was there. See Cook in action here. I frankly was waiting for Cook to commit a hate crime against my friend Harvey.
Liss and I reported Cook’s actions to the Irvine Police Department and we encouraged an investigation into a violation of the City’s Free Speech Ordinance. In the course of the investigation, Liss revealed a female volunteer had literature ripped from her hands at a Trader Joe’s near UC-Irvine by Cook. I produced screen grabs of Cook bragging about his interference with the signature gathering process.
For someone who fought for American rights and freedoms, Cook had no trouble violating Constitutional protections of Irvine citizens seeking to petition our local government on an issue so many feel so strongly about.
Because I wasn’t deemed a victim here, the city refused to give me any documents regarding this investigation. Liss was also declared to not have been a victim. The woman Cook terrorized was and her comments were taken in this report. I felt the city was running out the clock — hoping to bury this violation by Cook until after the Measure B vote. But the documents arrived in my email Thursday night. See them here Cook Investigation Documents 2017. There’s a lot of redacted material and I’ve redacted the name of Cook’s victim to protect her from further harassment by Cook and his cronies.
Bill Cook is a bully; he picks on women and men smaller than himself. Qualities that ought to make any Veteran ashamed of themselves.
His citation and fine, while small financially, marks him as what is believed to be the first individual cited by the City’s Free Speech Ordinance. Cook has been active on social media via the Voice of OC declaring the ARDA site was never real and that Sharon Quirk-Silva had never produced the $30 million from the state to clean up the ARDA site. I produced a press release from SQS from May 2017 where she promoted the funds just in time for Memorial Day.
As far as “stolen valor” is concerned, Cook has not addressed the pro-Freeway site troll John Scott Horner III who claimed to be a retired Army dentist and is very likely someone Cook knows personally. Cook prefers to look the other way here. And Cook has nothing to say about the $600,000 from Heritage Fields (aka FivePoint) that’s funding all the signs Irvine residents see on the streets. Cook may not have taken any money personally, but $600,000 from a single entity is the very definition of being bought off. Here’s those financials. Heritage Field #1 and Hertiage Fields #3
Meanwhile, I am grateful neighbors I don’t know in my Northwood community was displaying No on B signs in their yards. And I have reminded them Mr. Cook lives in Mission Viejo and not Irvine.