Way back in January, when a private investigator’s report spawned an Orange County District Attorney’s investigation into Tammy Kim’s Plan B to move into Irvine’s District 5 if she lost the Mayor’s race to Council member Larry Agran, TheLiberalOC filed a public records request with the city of Irvine to review communications between Kim and others in her sphere.
Current Council members Melinda Liu and William Go were commissioners under Kim. Both were elected to the city council, with Go naming Kim his finance commissioner and Liu hiring Evette Kim as her chief of staff. Evette Kim was Tammy Kim’s chief of staff. Sr. Kathleen Treseder was very public about her friendship with former council member Kim and how their families would sometimes socialize. Treseder was the only member of the council to acknowledge Kim during her final meeting of the city council, and would often call out public speakers at city council meetings if they were Agran supporters as if that mattered.
Our query was simple. What did Treseder, Liu, Go and Evette Kim know Tammy Kim’s plan to move into District 5? Did they believe the May 2024 move into an apartment Kim did not live was legitimate? Did they ever ask to see the new place? And what about when the PI outed Kim as not living at the 2024 address but move into a new District 5 address in January 2025? Irvine Watchdog commenters suggested that now Council member William Go loaned Kim his truck to move into the second residence in District 5. Kim then withdrew from the special election, Go removed her as a commissioner, and Todd Spitzer’s office charged Kim with felonies for fraud and perjury.
I filed a second PRA to ask for all the city records that the city gave to the OCDA’s office; the city responded right away to say these records were part of an active investigation and I was not entitled to them. I did receive a couple of extension letters promising I’d get a final response from the city on March 31. Last week, the city contact me by letter to say they found responsive records to my query but these were privileged, and I was not entitled to them.
Fair enough.
Tammy Kim’s Hail Mary for a mental health diversion may allow her to avoid these felony charges in the next two years. And oddly enough, if she’s passes the program successfully, Kim could run for office again. Democratic and Republican consultants have already told me if that happens, “the mail against Tammy will write itself,” even though a campaign belittling mental health is tasteless. But anyone I speak doesn’t believe Kim is mentally ill.
And while the city won’t offer any evidence about who knew what and when, it doesn’t mean the targets of my inquiry are off the hook. Council members Liu and Treseder are running for re-election. Council member Go will likely run in 2028. Evette Kim is a city staff who’s future employment is dependent on Liu being re-elected.
Election day is months away and there will be candidate forums. Voters need to question these candidates for office. “What did you know and when did you know it?” Don’t let them dodge the questions. It seems completely unlikely they were unaware of Tammy Kim’s strategy, and the placement of Kim staffers with newly elected council members did not happen organically.
So while Liu, Go and Treseder can hide behind privileged communications, they can’t hide from questions from the voters. Ask them what they knew.
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