Save the Memorial Park! Vote No on Measure B ballot June 5th

paperboyNC said:
Can someone explain Measure B to me?
https://www.cityofirvine.org/government/city-clerk/municipal-election-information

Special Municipal Election - June 5, 2018

On Jan. 9, 2018, the City Council called for the holding of a Special Municipal Election, to be consolidated with the Statewide Direct Primary Election, on Tuesday, June 5, 2018 for the submission to the qualified voters question related to Ordinance No. 17-08 as follows:

AMENDED BALLOT LABEL: "Shall Ordinance No. 17-08, approving zone text amendments to allow for a land exchange agreement that facilitates (a) the allocation of development previously planned for the Bake Parkway Site to property near the intersection of Pusan and Irvine Blvd, and (b) the development of the State-approved site for the Southern California Veterans Cemetery on strawberry fields located near the intersection of I-5 and Bake Parkway, be adopted?" (Measure B)

At the Feb. 27, 2018 City Council meeting, the City Council approved two additional ballot measures to be placed on the June 5, 2018 Special Municipal Election ballot as follows:
?Shall the measure amending the Irvine City Charter to require at least a two-thirds vote of the total City Council membership in order to place City Council sponsored general or special tax proposals on a ballot for voter consideration, be adopted?" (Measure C)

?Shall Section 1099 be added to the Irvine City Charter which benefits Irvine?s general fund and local taxpayers by requiring that no City procedures or requirements delay important revenue streams from development projects which provide a fiscal benefit to Irvine citizens, be adopted?? (Measure D)

For up-to-date election information, call the City of Irvine Election Hotline at 949-724-6159.
 
Vote YES on B if you want the land swap for the cemetery to move forward.

Vote YES on C if you want to make it more difficult for the City to propose tax raising ballot measures.

Vote NO on D if you want to preserve resident rights to vote on future land developments.
 
From the ballot statements prepared by Agran?s team:

?Most Important Your NO vote on Measure B paves the way for Councilmembers Jeff
Lalloway and Lynn Schott to re-introduce their resolution to immediately commence construction of the Veterans Cemetery within the Great Park, as originally planned and promised.?

From Agran?s news:

?Step no. 2 On June 12th the Irvine City manager and staff are directed to immediately commence construction of the Veterans Cemetery in the Great Park  ?.?

A NO vote on B means Agran wants to immediately build  the Veterans Cemetery on the ARDA (which is NOT in the Great Park) , tight among neighborhoods and residences, next to the new high school.

If that is what you want - a neighborhood cemetery, vote NO.

For the Veterans Cemetery to be on the Strawberry Field, on Bake Parkway and away from communities, vote YES on measure B
 
What are your thoughts regarding the proposed veteran shelter?

Never leave a man behind.

Our Gang said:
From the ballot statements prepared by Agran?s team:

?Most Important Your NO vote on Measure B paves the way for Councilmembers Jeff
Lalloway and Lynn Schott to re-introduce their resolution to immediately commence construction of the Veterans Cemetery within the Great Park, as originally planned and promised.?

From Agran?s news:

?Step no. 2 On June 12th the Irvine City manager and staff are directed to immediately commence construction of the Veterans Cemetery in the Great Park  ?.?

A NO vote on B means Agran wants to immediately build  the Veterans Cemetery on the ARDA (which is NOT in the Great Park) , tight among neighborhoods and residences, next to the new high school.

If that is what you want - a neighborhood cemetery, vote NO.

For the Veterans Cemetery to be on the Strawberry Field, on Bake Parkway and away from communities, vote YES on measure B
Our Gang said:
From the ballot statements prepared by Agran?s team:

?Most Important Your NO vote on Measure B paves the way for Councilmembers Jeff
Lalloway and Lynn Schott to re-introduce their resolution to immediately commence construction of the Veterans Cemetery within the Great Park, as originally planned and promised.?

From Agran?s news:

?Step no. 2 On June 12th the Irvine City manager and staff are directed to immediately commence construction of the Veterans Cemetery in the Great Park  ?.?

A NO vote on B means Agran wants to immediately build  the Veterans Cemetery on the ARDA (which is NOT in the Great Park) , tight among neighborhoods and residences, next to the new high school.

If that is what you want - a neighborhood cemetery, vote NO.

For the Veterans Cemetery to be on the Strawberry Field, on Bake Parkway and away from communities, vote YES on measure B
 
The story of the "original", "intended", "promised", "in the great park" site

Vets Cemetery: Agran Tells DPOC to Stay Out of Irvine?s Business
By  Greg Diamond    ? April 23, 2018    Posted in: "The OC", Fresh Juice
 
Larry Agran was making the rounds of DPOC delegates this weekend, calling to lobbying them to take no position on the ballot measure coming to Irvine this June on approving the land swap that will allow the Veterans Cemetery to be built on the ?Strawberry Field? site ? and, possibly, at all.  (Strawberry Field has survived court battles; court battles over the ARDA site have not yet even begun, but they would have a lot better chance than the ones that Agran has been sponsoring.  Let?s just put it this way: the current administration ? which could likely stop such a project if it wanted to ? is bribable.

Agran is so bent on having revenge against Five Point, which wants the ARDA site but also played a critical role in dislodging him from office, that he would apparently rather see no cemetery built than rather one that gave Five Point ? in exchange for valuable land it is trading along the ?El Toro Y? junction of the 5 and 405 ? access to the secluded, polluted, but remediable ?ARDA site? at the polluted end of the runway where planting strawberries might have contributed  to manslaughter if they were eaten.

I know that Agran?s main motive is revenge not only because opposing the Strawberry Fields site is a reckless and pointless gamble to push the planned cemetery onto a polluted site where it would be subject to prolonged litigation, but because I was the one who pitched the original plan to him at a Labor Fed Holiday Party on the day that Sharon Quirk-Silva was appointed Chair of the Veterans Affairs Committee during her first term ? and that?s how I sold him on the idea.  I brought Sharon across the room to talk to Agran and Beth Krom about this proposal, which I knew of through my friend Brian Chuchua?s involvement with what later became the OCVMP (?Orange County Veterans Memorial Park) Foundation, which had been pursuing an OC-based cemetery without gaining traction ?and I recall his delighted reaction when he realized that it would put Five Point in a box.

And it did!  Five Point had to put up a far better parcel of land to dislodge the planned cemetery from a site where it would put it into legal trouble with the people to whom it had sold nearby houses.  The freeway and train-depot adjacent site will provide far more visibility, accessibility, and congenial relations than the site on polluted ground next to a housing tract.  Five Point never would have given up the Strawberry Fields site ? at the other end of the runway from the ARDA site, where planes (and jet fuel and more) were on the ground, and which served only as a clear and safe place for planes to land if they had to ditch on takeoff or short of the runway while landing ? unless they had to.  And ? thanks to the hard work of Larry, Sharon, Josh Newman, and others, they had to!

There?s only one thing that moving the planned cemetery from the polluted ARDA site to the pristine and perfectly placed Strawberry Fields site doesn?t accomplish: it doesn?t screw over Five Point and those who bought homes from it nearly as badly.  And THAT IS ALL THAT LARRY AGRAN WANTS ? REVENGE!  That is what all the fighting about!

It is miserable, cruel, and dishonorable that Agran is risking denying OC a cemetery at all just to get even with Five Point, when the primary people hurt are the veterans and their families who don?t want to drive to Riverside to see them as often!

Agran and his agents have been making the argument that this is an internal Irvine matter.  IT?S NOT!  If there were truly no likelihood of the cemetery being eliminated if the property swap were rejected, then they might have a point ? though even then I doubt it would be compelling ? but the path of keeping the cemetery on ARDA, which was the best path until Five Point offered the swap, was still fraught with obstacles.  The swap for Strawberry Fields offers an easy glide path to completion ? without the risk of a crash landing.

And Agran wants DPOC to stay out of it so that he can have his revenge?  NOT BLOODY LIKELY!

DPOC ? and other organizations outside of Irvine ? have a legitimate interest in the fate of this proposal: the interest of OC?s veterans and their loves ones.  We have no interest in Agran?s petty drive for revenge against Five Point, however much we might sympathize.

I?ll be blunt about this: when OC, as a county nixed the idea of an airport in Irvine ? still a sore point in Newport Beach, Costa Mesa, and southwest Santa Ana ? it was because the county expected something great out of the property.  Something like a Great Park.  And Agran ? through a combination of hubris, cronyism, and bad luck ? bungled it.  When he was in control, he had his cronies like Miguel Pulido on the Board of the Great Park not only to allow him to do whatever he wanted with their approval, but also ostensibly because what happened in this area was a countywide concern.

Well, now, the Veterans Cemetery ? while not on the site of the Great Park no matter which site was used ? is going to be the closest thing to Greatness adjacent to that site. Veterans in the county ? and the rest of us ? have a stake in its coming to fruition, and Veterans groups and supportive politicians from both parties and neither have an absolute right to represent those interests.  That right will, I expect, be vindicated tonight.

As one politician said in a recent email blast from the veterans group:
Tonight the Democratic Party of Orange County (DPOC) will vote on whether to support Irvine?s Measure B, a ballot initiative that will result in the establishment of an Orange County Veterans Cemetery at the Strawberry Fields site off Bake Parkway. This is a moment for Orange County Democrats to stand behind veterans and provide Orange County veterans the final resting place they both want and deserve. To be clear, there is no alternative site. If the ballot initiative fails, veterans will not see a cemetery in OC. Those opposed to Measure B who say otherwise are lying.

I fully support Irvine Measure B, as I have supported the establishment of a veterans cemetery at the Strawberry Fields site since it was proposed last year. I have stood beside veterans at our local shopping centers to educate the public against the misinformation campaign backed by cynical, opportunistic politicians of yesteryear who are attempting to hang onto the last threads of their power and influence in this city at the expense of veterans. I have stood up to paid bounty signature gatherers who spit in my face and called me names because it is no sacrifice compared to the ultimate sacrifice innumerable veterans

I stand with the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, American GI Forum of the United States Education Foundation Orange County, California (AGIFOC), League of United Latin American Citizens, Governor Jerry Brown, U.S. Representative Lou Correa, Assembly Member Sharon Quirk-Silva, State Senator Josh Newman, and Irvine City Councilmember Melissa Fox in support of Measure B and urge you to join me in voting ?YES? on June 5, 2018.

The DPOC previously passed a resolution in favor of the Strawberry Fields site that condemned the misleading bounty signature gatherers who lied to residents about the fundamental facts of this issue. The bottom line is that if you support veterans having a cemetery in Orange County, you must vote ?YES? on measure B. I look forward to the action of the DPOC tonight and urge the central committee to support this ballot measure.

Lies about ARDA being in the Great Park have by now been abandoned by the Agran forces, due to court action.  That Agran and his puppet Ed Pope are both veterans who oppose the Strawberry Fields site is irrelevant because Agran ? who is doing the thinking for both of them ? does not have the interest of veterans in mind.  All he wants is revenge.

DPOC has the opposite set of priorities ? honoring veterans is primary, revenge isn?t even an issue ? and did vote accordingly.
 
Thanks for shedding light on this critical issue. I would vote YES on measures B. Larry Agran has ill intentions, even when he was running public office in Irvine.
 
Burn That Belly said:
GP residents - Yes on B
Everybody else in Irvine - No on B

I can see that you have no reading comprehension and failed to look at all the facts. For the record, I am a veteran and I DO want to have a cemetery in Irvine. Voting YES will guarantee this. Voting a NO B will not see any cemetery at all. I hope that my simple break down help you understand the complexities of the matters.
 
Regardless of what BTB posts here, BTB doesn't have the power to move markets.

GP's problems are entirely the result of decisions made by 5P and the City.

Lennar (5P's predecessor in interest) bid on the El Toro MCAS knowing that the Navy was selling the base on the condition there wouold be a Veterans Cemetery there.

The City accepted the County's GP land knowing the County retianed a parcel that could be used to house the homeless.

Don't blame BTB for 5P's greed and the City's poor decision making.
 
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