A Sit-Down with Mayor Larry Agran

• January 29, 2026, 10:30 am America/Los_Angeles

In this sit-down with the Mayor, we ask about the Irvine Library System, his thoughts on OCFA and OCPA, the Great Park’s Plans, and the Future of Irvine.

This sit-down was conducted on January 21st, 2026. Questions and Responses have been edited for clarity.

Library

Irvine Watchdog: Mayor Agran, how do you feel that the library system is progressing?

Mayor Larry Agran: I think the transition to Irvine ownership of our own library system has gone very well, very smoothly, on schedule. Over the summer, we were also able to renovate the Heritage Park Library and the University Park Library to some extent. They’re brighter, more usable, and more user-friendly than before, and, of course, we’re improving library services every day.

Irvine Watchdog: Are you looking forward to the Katie Wheeler library opening up?

Mayor Larry Agran: I’m very much looking forward to that. Of course, we have a special arrangement with the county on the Katie Wheeler library. They want to use it later on as a museum, which would deprive us of library space there. That was kind of part of the deal we entered into with them. But I think its future is still a bit up for grabs, and of course, we’re going to do everything we can to see to it that the Katie Wheeler library remains a library and remains a special library here in Irvine.

Irvine Watchdog: Are we able to lock down ownership of our current libraries? Will we be able to retain the University library?

Mayor Larry Agran: We definitely have locked down Heritage Park Library. University Park, we actually lease that building from them (The County). That’s an unsatisfactory arrangement as far as I’m concerned. Going forward, we’ll have to enter into further discussions with the county on that particular property. I would like to see us, of course, own the University Park Library and the land on which it sits. And we’re, of course, looking also at expansion plans for the University Park Library. So, to be continued, we’ll see what happens in the months and maybe even a couple of years ahead.

OCFA

Irvine Watchdog: Talking about services, we have the Orange County Fire Authority that Irvine pays quite a considerable amount of money to every year. Are you satisfied with the kind of current services that are being offered?

Mayor Larry Agran: No, this is a critically important and massively funded agency to provide fire and emergency services. The important story here is that for years and years now, the City of Irvine has been putting in, as our taxpayers pay their property tax bills every year, about twice as much into the Orange County Fire Authority as we get back in services, believe it or not, Irvine taxpayers put into the OCFA about $160 million a year in property tax payments to fund OCFA, we get back about $80 million in services. 

Obviously, that makes us a donor city, which we don’t mind being a donor city, but this is a donor city in the extreme, and we just aren’t getting the fire services attention commensurate with the highly disproportionate contributions we make to supporting that agency that for the average homeowner. Could represent as much as $500 a year (per homeowner), more than we’re putting in than we’re getting back.

Irvine Watchdog: Given how much money we spend, if we were to divest from the Orange County Fire Authority, do you anticipate we could still get that same level of service, and not pay as much? Or do you think we would probably pay as much, but at least we would own it?

Mayor Larry Agran: Well, this is an open question, but the study that we have done previously suggests that we could create and operate and negotiate a deal with the county, our own independent Fire Authority for 60, 70, maybe $80 million a year. That could include upgraded services, Ambulance service, and the like. 

$80 million dollars a year, as compared with the 160 million that we’re putting into the county system. So the answer to your question is yes, I think we could have not only our own control, but also more economically operated fire equipment and fire services. I think we need to take a close look at that.

Irvine Watchdog: Is there anything that the OCFA could do? Are there more services that they could provide that would maybe help make up that difference?

Mayor Larry Agran: Sure, they could help homeowners ensure that their houses are protected as best as possible. This involves visiting one home after another, helping homeowners. We could also enjoy vastly improved emergency services at less expense. There’s nothing to prevent OCFA from seeing to it that these exorbitant charges for an ambulance service are reduced or subsidized. Lots of things can be done.

OCPA

Irvine Watchdog: Let’s, let’s talk about the Power Authority. I (the interviewer) live in a household where we don’t turn on too much heat. We don’t use a lot of AC. And yet, year after year, my power bill rises. I am with SCE. I opted out of OCPA when I first came to town. But even with SCE, my bills have gone up tremendously, almost 100% compared to 10 years ago. Do you think OCPA is still a decent alternative for people? Do you think it’s still a good opportunity? 

Mayor Larry Agran: Well, utility costs, electricity costs in particular, are going up at a pretty dramatic rate. I will say this: the rates) SCE has put in the PUC and got approval, and I think now their new program is being implemented, which actually brings down the rates a little bit. 

On the other hand, OCPA, which previously benchmarked its rates to what SCE was charging, is no longer benchmarking; they’re going to raise their rates. And OCPA, in my judgment, has been a failure, and I think that failure is becoming more evident all the time. After all, the promise was to deliver cleaner, greener electricity at a price below what SCE was charging. And that no longer is the case. Hasn’t been the case for years, and now it is, even in a more exaggerated sense, no longer the case.

I think we have to look to disengagement over time. That, of course, has been something I’ve pushed for on the city council, but we’ve fallen short.

Irvine Watchdog: Has the city done any numbers or studies to figure out what OCPA has cost? What price differential would the average Irvine Homeowner pay between OCPA and SCE? The promise of OCPA was for cleaner energy. 

Mayor Larry Agran: Yes, first of all, OCPA is delivering dirtier electricity. They purchase more of the so-called non-specific, non-specified electricity. They purchase more of the fossil fuel based generated electricity, and so they’re almost twice as dirty as SCE.

Yes, here’s the way I would put it, all the data that I’ve seen since they’ve been operating in 2022 and looking more closely at their 2023, 2024 and most recently, of course, 2025, operations Irvine homeowners and businesses have put in at least 50 million more than if we had stayed with SCE by some calculations, averaged out, that’s about $500 per homeowner, and that’s a lot of money.

Irvine’s Budget

Irvine Watchdog: We are fortunate enough to be a city that hasn’t had to raise taxes. Our budget is flush in Irvine (in comparison to other cities), What are your future priorities? Where do you want to see Irvine go? We recently voted on the innovation tech center to help move Irvine into the future. Where else do you see us moving towards in Irvine?

Mayor Larry Agran: Well, I think fundamentally, the city’s finances are in excellent shape as we go through periods of growth and then, of course, periods of recession. During those periods in the short term, we have to build bridge policies to bridge our way, using reserves and so forth to get beyond a downturn. Sales tax revenue typically goes down when there’s a recession, even a modest one. So we prepared our finances to deal with all that. There is so much growth and development taking place in the city, and we have so much in the way of assets. 

For example, our park system, which is considered to be the second-best park system of any municipality in the entire nation, the first being, according to Wallet Hub and other ranking entities, the District of Columbia, Washington, DC. 

Those parks, many of them are 50 years old, if we’re going to finance them for the future, we have to think longer term. Perhaps putting a bond issue on the ballot to maintain and improve our park system further for the next 50 years or so, and we also have to be thinking in terms of the day-to-day operations of the city. 

We take great pride in paying our employees very well because we demand the most. I think we have the best municipal workforce in the country. Still, all this costs money, so while other cities are looking at additional revenues going forward, because they are distressed at this point, they haven’t planned for a period of recession or slowed-down growth. We’re in much better shape than those. But I think we have to be thinking in terms of additional revenues for the long haul over the next 20, 30, 40, and 50 years, and our staff is taking a good look at all of that.

The Great Park

Irvine Watchdog: Talking about future planning, I remember the original vision for the Great Park and how much that has diverged over the last 30 years. There was a recent Instagram post mockingly making fun of the Great Park. But let’s look 20 years into the future of the Great Park? What do you want to see being built in there that will. Make it the Great Park?

Mayor Larry Agran: Well, you don’t have to look 20 years into the future. Look five years into the future, even two years into the future, the Heart of the Park, the lakes, the surrounding forest station, the Veterans Memorial Park and gardens, all of that’s going to be addressed over the next couple of years.

When was the last time you were out at the Great Park?

Irvine Watchdog: Probably a week and a half ago?

Mayor Larry Agran: All right, then you probably saw that the land has been sculpted and is ready to go with the Heart of the Park. 3800 trees are going to be planted over the next couple of years, in addition to all that’s going on now, we’ve got about 6 million with an M. 6 million visitors every year, and that number, of course, is going up. We expect it to hit 10 million over the next four or five years. 

The Sports Park is basically completed. The Cultural Terrace is next. Now you’re going to see ground is being broken for the Flying Leatherneck Aviation Museum, the Pretend City Children’s Museum, and the Orange County Music and Dance, all in the Cultural Terrace. So these years immediately ahead are going to be very exciting. 

You know, a great Metropolitan Park by design typically takes 40 or 50 years or more to build. We think our Great Park, which is about half built now, will be built out by about 2035 – 2040, which is considerably faster than might be expected. You know people because their thinking is of neighborhood parks or community parks. They think, well, that can be built in a year or two or three years, which it can, but a great Metropolitan Park. Historically, these have taken 50, 75, or even 100 years to build out. I think we’ll get the job done in 40 years. We’re about halfway there now.

The Future

Irvine Watchdog: This next year, what kind of priorities do you have for Irvine? What do you want to see getting done over the next year?

Mayor Larry Agran: Well, stay tuned for my State of the City remarks, which will be on March 10, but they’ll be a follow-up to my first State of the City remarks, which were last winter, which expressed our aspirations.

I think it’s a shared aspiration to make Irvine America’s safest, smartest, greenest, healthiest, and kindest city. And I got into a lot of the particulars. What are our aspirations, programmatically and so forth, and this year’s State of the City remarks are intended to be remarks of accountability. 

How have we done? How much progress have we made? And how much progress do we need to make? Going forward, some new problems have emerged. I alluded to them in our last State of the City convocation. I spoke, for example, about E-bikes, which are an emerging, worsening problem we’re trying to contend with. There are many other issues along the same lines, but I’m going to reserve my comments for March 10. 

But I think by and large, we’re making progress. We’re making real progress.

Irvine Watchdog: Thank you for your time.