Kim and Carroll Commit Political Plagiarism over Great Park CFD

Over the course of my career in public relations, just about every friend and colleague in the business has a story about their ideas being stolen by superiors or peers and it’s happened to me too.

My friend Hal, who passed away last year, applied for a speechwriter’s position with a University in the northeast and his writing test was to craft a commencement address for the school’s president.  After submitting the draft and following up, he was told the position was closed.  So armed with photo copies of his application, business cards from those he interviewed with and a copy of his writing test, he attended the school’s graduation ceremony only to hear his speech presented word-for-word.  Hal spotted the school executive he interviewed with in the crowd and made his way to him after the ceremony.  “Remember me?” he said.

When the man realized who Hal was, he became immediately flushed and stammered.  Hal gave him an envelope with records of the interview invite, instructions for the writing test, the transcript of the speech and follow up communications — and inside the envelope was an invoice for a sizable amount of money.  And Hal showed a second identical envelope and said, “let go see the chancellor right now and talk about his address or we can walk to your office where you can cut me a check.” Being a Sunday, it was impossible to cut a check so Hal gave the man 48 hours or he’d be back to discuss the matter with the managing editor of the local newspaper.  Hal got paid.

It’s a bit of a story, but it brings me to a situation with the Irvine city council.  Irvine Vice Mayr Tammy Kim and Council member Mike Carroll send a memo on June 29 to the city manager and city council to agendize a discussion and presentation about Great Park Community Facilities District to address concerns by Great Park neighbors.  And it is a necessary discussion.  One that Council member Larry Agran asked for a second on this very subject on June 15 where he was unable to get a second.

Both memos are available above.

Now this is either intellectual property theft or plagiarism; so I’ll call it Political Plagiarism because it just rolls off the tongue.

Instead of doing the easy, fast and honorable thing of providing Agran a second, Kim and Carroll stole this to make it their own.  This is political cowardice.  And it’s a guidepost of how this city council is going to cancel Agran’s request to agendize any item that matters to the city while creating a narrative that other members of the council are actually the ones displaying leadership and responsiveness to the residents of the city.

Kim and Carroll were the top two vote getters in the last city council election. Voters elected them for ideas presented during the campaign, but it’s clear the two are simply stealing ideas from another council member.  And while I’m at it, Carroll stopped doing all those COVID19 Town Halls paid for with Taxpayer dollars after election day as the last deadly wave of the virus was surging.  He won a seat during the election and didn’t need to do any others after all.

And I have no doubt Karma is going to come into play for these two at some point.

When I still lived in Boston, I drafted a plan for the tech company I worked for and asked my boss to review so we (we not me) could present it to senior management.  Another firm was recruiting me at the time, and I told them I was going to pass on their opportunity.  A week later, I was told of a meeting where he was making a presentation to the senior marketing team.  I walked into the meeting 5 minutes after it start to discover he was presenting my plan as his.  He paused briefly to see me there and continued.  And then was congratulated for the plan.  Everyone left and I asked him why he never got back to me or why he presented my ideas as his.  He said “we’ll discuss this later.”

I called the firm that was after me and told them I reconsidered their opportunity and came in the next day for an interview.  I has hired three days later.  On my exit interview, I showed HR the plan was in fact mine and the trail of communications between my manager and I.  They asked me to reconsider but planned to talk with him about the matter and likely take no action.  I said my goodbyes and really loved my new employer.  Found out later my former manager was fired six months later for lying about where the ideas from his presentation came from.

Karma.