Irvine’s new District Electeds forget their neighbors when it comes to Commission appointments

On Tuesday, the first seven-member Irvine City Council convenes its first meeting, with a break for a ceremonial swearing in and reception.  It’s the first time neighbors in districts elected neighbors to the city council.  But, for the most part, these new electeds aren’t selecting the neighbors who elected them to commission appointments or as staff — with one exception.  Republican James Mai’s commission appointments all have addresses in his district.

William Go tells me he tried, but appointed former Mayoral candidate and council member Tammy Kim to be his finance commissioner.  It’s funny, because that is the one commission she’s least qualified for.  And she’s a new carpet-bagged resident of District 5, in which she hopes to be elected to the city council in a special election April 15 to complete the final two years of Mayor-elect Larry Agran’s term.  To Kim’s detriment, she was an architect of selecting an EV charging company for the Great Park on the grounds it was an Irvine company and the city would rake in millions.  Not the case; the company is based elsewhere, has slow technology and revenue is in the five figures, not seven.  Kim is milking every minute of her remaining term holding listening sessions on Irvine’s new library plan which she says will save Irvine money paid into the county library system.  The same argument didn’t apply to having a city-based fire department where Irvine subsidizes much of OC.  Kim didn’t push for this because the OC firefighters union gave her $300K to fight off a recall that’s never going to happen.  Kim might now be able to treat this donation as a gift to fund a city council run with money that exceeds election contribution limits.  But she’s gets to use “Finance Commissioner” on her ballot designation.

Melinda Liu, who represents District 1 (where I live) said 99.9% of her appointments are from the neighborhood.  She is considering hiring Tammy Kim’s chief of staff, Evette Kim, who got into a — let’s call it a tiff — with an Irvine resident, Sarah Rhee, who’s been a longtime critic os Tammy Kim.  Sources tell TheLiberalOC that incident is under investigation, so its entirely possible that Evette Kim might be denied employment at Irvine City Hall based the results of the inquiry.

Neither of these two new Democratic council members seem to have their all their commission appointents set as of Tuesday night.  But it’s clear both were making decisions on staffing based on endorsements received from Tammy Kim instead of selecting neighbors to fill these seats as a natural extension of their council elections.

Council member Mike Carroll still has commission appointments from other parts of the city outside his district which is a holdover from his at-large seat.  As mayor, Larry Agran can have commission appointments from all over the city.  And Kathleen Treseder is still considered an at-large council member until she runs for election in 2026; Jeff Stark, who was a runner up to Go in district 2, decided to reamin her finance commissioner rather than move to Go’s team.

What I was struck with as I talked to the new electeds is how unprepared most of them where to appoint neighbors as commissioners.  That should have been done rigth after election day, even if the results weren’t complete.  Commissioners serve at the pleasure of the council members who appoint them.  There’s always time to make better choices.