Ed Pope: Irvine Vets Cemetery at ARDA Site Makes the November Ballot

 

Irvine’s Ed Pope sent this to us and we’re sharing:

The Orange County Registrar of Voters has notified the City of Irvine that our Veterans Cemetery citizens’ initiative has officially qualified for the November ballot.

I am so grateful to our donors and the hundreds of volunteers who worked so hard to help us gather 19,790 signatures —- far more than the 12,888 Irvine voter signatures required by State law!

This marks an important step towards building our long-promised State-built and State-operated  Southern California Veterans Memorial Park & Cemetery on the former El Toro Marine Corps Air Station at the Great Park.

Although getting our initiative on the November ballot is an important step, we continue to face an uphill battle!  As you know, developer FivePoint has been bankrolling a group of “dark money” political committees for years, spending millions of dollars to defeat our State Veterans Cemetery.  These shell committees are already being used to spread lies in a relentless effort to defeat our citizens’ initiative.  FivePoint thinks they grab our precious parkland for their own massive development projects.

FivePoint is counting on our all-volunteer team not having the financial resources to fight back against their disinformation campaign.  They know that we have limited financial resources, and that we are relying on small donors like you to fuel our efforts.  That’s why we need your help!

I’m asking you to donate $25, $100, $500 — whatever you can reasonably afford — to make sure that we can reach out to voters right now to ensure our ballot initiative passes.  You can also sign up to make a monthly contribution.

And there’s this from Irvine Community News & Views:

Build the Great Park Veterans Cemetery Citizens’ Initiative Qualifies for the November Ballot On Wednesday (April 29th), the Orange County Registrar of Voters notified the City of Irvine that the Build the Great Park Veterans Cemetery initiative has qualified for the November 2020 ballot. If the citizens’ initiative is passed by Irvine voters later this fall, the City-owned 125-acre “ARDA” site on the former El Toro Marine Corps Air Station at the Great Park will be rezoned exclusively for a Veterans Memorial Park & Cemetery. The initiative qualified for the ballot thanks to an amazing all-volunteer team, consisting of hundreds of Irvine citizens who worked tirelessly for months to gather 19,790 signatures from Irvine residents — far more than the 12,888 registered voter signatures required by State law. This marks the second time in two years that Irvine residents have been forced to organize a campaign effort in order to stop the City Council from moving the Veterans Cemetery to an alternate location.  Measure B, a ballot referendum proposing a land-swap scheme with mega-developer FivePoint, was soundly defeated by Irvine voters in 2018 — 63% to 37%. Ignoring the results of the 2018 election, unelected Mayor Christina Shea has continued to work as a shill for FivePoint in a blatant attempt to hand the ARDA site over to the developer for massive construction projects.  Shea was caught on video last summer bragging about her latest scheme to stop the State from beginning construction of the Veterans Memorial Park & Cemetery at the ARDA site. Now that it has officially qualified for the November ballot, the City Council is required to act upon the citizens’ initiative at the next Council meeting, which is scheduled to take place on May 12th.  At the May 12th meeting, the Council can choose to adopt the citizens’ initiative as an ordinance or put it on the November ballot for Irvine voters to decide. Shea has stated that she wants the City Council to put a competing measure on the November ballot to defeat the citizens’ initiative — without gathering a single signature from Irvine residents. To learn more about the Build the Great Park Veterans Cemetery citizens’ campaign and how you can help, click here.

Here’s what I’m looking for:

The Yes on Measure B efforts — a move to crate a landswap with FivePoint and the city — were championed by City Council member Melissa Fox and then council candidate Lauren Johnson-Norris.  The DPOC joined forces with the OC GOP in a bi-partisan effort to encourage the landswap. Fox is now running for Assembly and Norris is making a second try at a city council spot and apparently both support the move to ARDA showing political positions developed from sticking a wet finger in the air.

The voters of Irvine overwhelmingly rejected the landswap (almost two to one) and while most voters assumed it meant keeping the Cemetery at ARDA , the language wasn’t in Measure B forcing this effort in November.

Considering the ARDA site, which had a good chunk of the funding in place but not all, was 10 days from construction/demolition, the while land swap deal just delayed everything.

It’s time to get this right and pass the initiative to place the Veterans Cemetery at ARDA.