When Video Tells the Story – Irvine City Council Meeting Public Comments

The Irvine City Council majority voted to abandon a Veteran’s Cemetery at the ARDA site of the old El Toro base for a combined Veteran’s and Civilian Cemetery at Gypsum Canyon in Anaheim Hills. Council member Larry Agran was the sole vote against it and three members of the council who last year voted for the ARDA site changed their minds.

So the real work begins because its unclear how CalVet might help fund a combination cemetery and one that is going to require significant funding to make it happen.

With four solid votes for the proposal, there was an effort to persuade council member Larry Agran to join them.  And he did not budge.  From the Voice of OC story:

While the rest of the council thanked Agran for his work on the cemetery, they pleaded with him to abandon the effort and support the Gypsum Canyon site, promising the land would not be turned over to FivePoint or any other developer.  

“Councilmember Agran please, please join me in seeing what could be possible. We will not give it to developers. Let’s hold hands and see this through,” said Councilwoman Tammy Kim. “This isn’t about politics … this is about our veterans.” 

Does anyone actually believe this?  Back to the story:

“It looks like you’re going to lose this one,” Carroll said to Agran after they heard from public commenters endorsing the shift. “Please put the past behind you … Your vote no tonight is equivalent to you just being small about the whole issue.”

Council member Carroll must have forgotten how Irvine residents voted on Measure B.  If he thinks this made Agran look small, Carroll’s vote makes him look like he’s bought and paid for.

And there were some fireworks.

I invite you to watch what actually happened.  Here’s the link to the meeting. https://irvine.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=68&clip_id=5530   Simply advance the video to the 3:10:23 mark of speaker Eugene Kaplan, a Vietnam veteran, who actually got into it with some Veterans before advancing to the Podium.  He initially introduced a video which Mayor Farrah Khan shut down because the principal speaker was someone the council had already heard from even though there’s no such published policy against this.  Kaplan then asked for and was granted his three minutes.

Here’s the transcript:

Kaplan:  Tammy Kim, I’m going to ask you a question I asked you a month ago.  You came from South Korea. How do you feel about the 36,574 Americans who died trying to save your country for freedom to allow you to come here to prevent the overrun by North Korean and Chinese?

Kim:  This is my country

Kaplan: How do you feel about the 326,9 hundred (unintelligible as Kim interrupts)

Kim: This is my country and I am an American

Kaplan: You’re American because you were lucky enough to live to get here.

Khan: I’m sorry, if you’re going to be disrespectful your time will be shut down.

Carroll then used a point of order to condemn the speaker’s racism and criticized Kapan’s “questioning” of Kim’s citizenship and credentials and said “he isn’t Irvine.” However, Kim was never asked to provide her citizenship credentials.

Since we’re on the subject of points of order, Council members are not supposed to interrupt a speaker in the middle of their time.  In Anaheim, gadfly William Fitzgerald says vile, racist and misogynistic things during his time at the microphone and those targets of his attacks have to sit there and take it.  They can and do respond after he’s said his piece, and that’s what Kim should have done.

In fact. Kim may have violated Kaplan’s First Amendment rights and risks a Brown Act violation in interrupting a speaker according to the First Amendment Coalition which says a public official can’t do that. 

Tammy Kim then issued a statement on her social media feeds and a statement was followed up by Democrats for Greater Irvine:   There’s no place for racism in Irvine.  At last night’s City Council meeting, I was the target of hostile racist attacks by supporters of one of my council colleagues who questioned my citizenship, my patriotism, and my right to be on the dias (sic).  As a Korean American. Asian American and a proud Irvine resident, I condemn all forms of racism and will speak out against Anti-Asian hate and those who attack our immigrant communities.  #stopasianhate #stopaapihate #weareirvine #irvine #cityofirvine

I think everyone can agree that Asian Hate and anti-AAPI hate continues to be a serious problem and we should all condemn it.

And Kim is right. There’s no place for racism in Irvine.  Good start to the statement and then it starts to fall apart.  There weren’t attacks (plural) by supporters (plural…it was one man) of a council colleague (presumably Agran, though there are plenty of Irvine residents who want the cemetery in Irvine who aren’t Agran fans). So that sentence is a gratuitous dig at Agran.

The question Kaplan posed to her was about how she felt about men and women who died or were wounded during the Korean Conflict (it wasn’t a war, remember?).  That’s not racist and it wasn’t an attack.  It was two questions.  Kaplan stated Kim is from South Korean.  That is factual.

When Kim interrupted him to shout that she was an American, Kim was the one who brought her citizenship into play.  Kaplan’s response of “you are American because you were lucky enough to live to get here” isn’t accurate because Kim was born decades after the conflict was over.  His point was 245,000 South Koreans were killed and millions were forced to flee their homes as North Korean forces occupied nearly the entire country before the South Korean army and UN forces – including the US – fought North Korea back.  What Kaplan probably meant was that Kim’s family members were lucky enough to survive the conflict so she could emigrate to America, become an American and get elected to city council.

Kaplan made no reference to Kim’s patriotism or right to be on the dais. None whatsoever.  She is an American citizen and a duly-elected member of the city council.  She condemns all forms of racism and will speak out against Anti-Asian hate and those who attack our immigrant communities.  Good.  She should. We all should.  But that isn’t what happened last Tuesday. And her statement isn’t fully accurate.

In a Tweet, Kim says this vote to support the site in Anaheim Hills will #healIrvine.  It won’t.  It further divides Irvine, just as her June “Great Park residents only” meeting was divisive.  As a candidate in 2020, Kim supported a Veteran’s cemetery at the Great Park.  As did Mayoral candidate Farrah Khan.  People voted for them on these promises now unkept.  Council members Carroll and Anthony Kuo both voted on the ARDA site.  All four have broken their promise to the Veterans who wish to be buried at El Toro.

The Register’s story adds some color for Kim. https://www.ocregister.com/2021/10/27/irvine-passes-baton-on-trying-to-build-veterans-cemetery-in-oc/

Councilwoman Tammy Kim said Wednesday she’s gotten hundreds of emails in favor of building the cemetery in Anaheim Hills, and groups representing thousands of local veterans agreed at Tuesday’s council meeting.

“I’ve not heard from a single Great Park resident who has advocated for a veterans cemetery at the Great Park at this point,” she said.

Kim sees Tuesday’s vote as ending the city’s leadership role in the project, though city officials and residents can support the cemetery plans from the sidelines, she said.

“Our big job is to step aside and let it happen,” she said.

Veteran’s Day is in a couple of weeks.  The city council majority ought to step aside and support Vets from the sidelines since they abdicated standing with them on a site at El Toro.