A new trend in Irvine these days are unsigned letters from “a concerned neighbor” warning about some political development and recommending a course of action for the reader to take. It was done more than a dozen times in the anonymous campaign against the Irvine for Responsible Growth’s “slow growth initiative” campaign which fell just short of gathering enough signatures to place that measure on the ballot.
Now, the anonymous letters are targeting an individual. In this case, Community Services Commissioner and city council candidate Lauren Johnson-Norris.
There’s an unflattering photo of Johnson-Norris drinking a beer taken from her husband’s Instagram account in 2012 under a headline calling her a “paid Defender of Child Molesters” and calling for her to resign and questioning if she should be setting policy on issues dealing with parks and childcare in the city “the places her clients hunts for prey.”
Johnson-Norris practices family law and her website offers little insight into her clientele. I haven’t received this postal mail yet but have had it sent to me by three different Republicans; I initially thought the sender was targeting Republican voters likely to not vote for Johnson-Norris for Council because she’s a Democrat. But then a couple of my left-leaning friends said they got one too.
Whatever you think of Johnson-Norris as an appointment official or as a candidate for city council (in my opinion there are better choices), this is a particularly mean-spirited campaign and the sort of thing that should just get tossed in the trash the second you realize that no one has signed it and no one is claiming responsibility for it.
But if the campaign against the slow growth initiative is a guide, Johnson-Norris can expect more of these attacks. Perhaps her husband needs to clean up his social media accounts.
An update: there’s a website and Twitter feed. www.laurenjohnsonnorrismustresign.wordpress.com
Craig Norris is in the Michael Fox political finishing school!!
Agree that these cowardly pieces need to stop but for those council people who said not a peep about the other letters, I suppose maybe now they might pay attention? They are all cowards for not standing up for what’s right.
Mr. Norris took lots of photos of black and brown people collecting signatures for the referendum that let to Measure B. He might not have intended it but I took his images to suggest he’s racist against those with black or brown skin. The photos — Shared on Melissa Fox’s blog — intended to illicit a specific response. I found them racist. He’ll disagree. Fox will disagree. But they were