Irvine Watchdog Candidate Q&A: Jeff Starke

• October 8, 2024, 11:17 am America/Los_Angeles

Jeff Starke is a small business owner and a PTA dad running for Irvine City Council to represent District 2. Starke and his family have lived in Irvine for a decade. 

Answers have been edited for clarity. 

Irvine Watchdog: What inspired you to run for city council?

Starke: I feel that our city needs more affordable housing, and it feels like there’s a strong component of the population here who does not want more housing. I wanted to stand up and do something about housing and advocate for our general plan. I think it’s a good plan and well thought out. It helps address the housing crisis. 

Also, I live in a newer part of the city, where we lack representation in city hall. Some things have been overlooked until recently like all of the garbage trucks on Sand Canyon, and the intersection at Sand Canyon and the 5 is terrible. 

Current politicians will say that the Great Park is progressing, but it’s only been in about the past five years that we have seen more progress. I moved here in 2014, and I think that the ice rink was there, but the amenities in the Great Park that people have been paying fees for haven’t really been built. It’s frustrating that we have had no retail, but they built 15,000 houses. Until very recently, I don’t think anyone was really addressing these things. 

So many people who aren’t living in our district say that they never go to the Great Park. I know the city is moving more of the festivals to the Great Park, which is nice, but there’s no plan to get people around the Great Park other than having people drive there, which impacts residents. For example, it’s hard to get out of the Great Park on Marine Way, especially if there was an event. If this is supposed to be a park where people from outside of the area come to enjoy, we also have to remember that there are 10,000 homes there and thousands of people living near the park, and we should strive to not inconvenience them just so others can come in and enjoy fireworks or a concert. 

Irvine Watchdog: In other cities, the communities really use their parks for birthday parties, families grill or host outdoor cookouts on the weekends in the parks, there’s a lot of activity beyond sports in their parks. Maybe there could be more of that in the Great Park. 

Starke: There could be. There’s a vitality that Irvine is lacking in some of these spaces. We had an event in my neighborhood that I sponsored when a new park opened with pickleball courts. I was thinking that maybe 60 people would come and play pickleball, but we ended up getting sponsors and had about 1,000 people come through that park. It turned into more of a festival, but it would be hard to do that every month. I would love to foster more events at the parks where people could come out and meet their neighbors and enjoy themselves outside. 

Irvine Watchdog: On your campaign website, your listed priorities include sustainable growth and housing. What would you say to Irvine residents who don’t want to build more housing here? 

Starke: I would say that the state has a mandate that we need to come up with a plan for additional housing. The state gave us a certain number, and we can come up with a plan to be in compliance with that to protect what we cherish about Irvine like the village concept and the parks and open spaces. The growth would be in certain areas of the city, near transportation, and it will be transit oriented development, near job centers, which would help alleviate traffic. 

Our population doubles every day when people come to work in Irvine. If we can have more of these people living close to work, it would reduce traffic. The additional housing would support the city and really help people like teachers, firefighters, and other workers who come from further out to work in Irvine instead of having them leave to drive home. It also makes it hard for people to be present for their families when they are spending two hours or more in traffic every day, in addition to their work hours. 

Irvine Watchdog: There certainly are housing insecure people in Irvine. I have seen people who look like they live in their cars in Irvine. Sometimes I wonder if we want to be a city that is ok with people living in cars. 

Starke: There definitely are people who work in Irvine and live in their cars. And there are a lot of people we don’t see anymore because they have moved and are now living in Arizona and Texas because housing is cheaper. 

People have always moved in our country because of different opportunities, but I don’t feel that people should be forced to move because of housing costs. I don’t think it’s morally responsible to expect people to commute for several hours to work each day. 

One example I go back to is looking at some of the mountain towns in Colorado that aren’t building more housing but their economy requires labor to operate the ski lifts and to work in hotels and hospitality. Some of these towns cannot find the people to work in restaurants and to operate those ski lifts in the businesses driving their local economy. I view additional housing as less pressure on quality of life than not having the services we need.

We also need more housing choices in Irvine. A lot of the smaller units are rentals or apartments, but we could look at smaller homes to help people get into the housing market as homeowners. As you pay down that mortgage, you build up that nest egg, but if people are spending so much on rent, how can they build that security for them and their families? 

Irvine Watchdog: You recently hosted your own BBQ fundraiser for your campaign. People in Irvine have long complained that we have a lot of chain restaurants and not as many independently owned dining establishments. What would you do if you were in power to help give us more choices and/or encourage new, smaller businesses to come here? 

Starke: If you look at South Coast Plaza, the Segerstroms made that mall the destination for food. And this is important even as we think about how malls aren’t as popular. When I was growing up, I never thought about the mall having good food because in other places malls typically have food courts with fast food. When you create something special like at South Coast Plaza, it becomes a place where people want to go to have dinner. A lot of people going to South Coast Plaza are from Irvine. 

Another challenge is that a lot of the retail/restaurant space here is owned by The Irvine Company. So a Michelin rated restaurant or even a lesser known independent restaurant is not going to have the volume of business that a fast food restaurant like a Chick-fil-A would have. We have to encourage The Irvine Company to build more mixed use developments with smaller spaces to help restaurants and retailers out with lower rent to give them opportunities to grow and maybe eventually attract a larger space when their business outgrows the smaller space. It has to be daunting to think about renting a space at The Spectrum, and we need to think about alternatives to encourage businesses to come here. 

We could also look at space at The Great Park to have stalls or businesses the size of a food truck that could be an incubator for food businesses. It could be like the Anaheim Packing House for businesses to try out concepts at lower risk where they share kitchen space or bathroom space. There’s a lot of ways that multiple little businesses can share a space. This would help give us more variety. There’s a lot of built in traffic at The Great Park already. We can have a lot of say over what goes in there. 

The Canopy – retail in The Great Park is coming soon. I know Starbucks has been wanting to go in there, but Almquist is looking for a smaller coffee roaster/vendor. We need to encourage more smaller businesses to come to Irvine and find ways to support them. People want more variety here. 

Irvine Watchdog: Is there a local elected leader that you admire or would seek to emulate if you are elected? 

Starke: Katie Porter. She’s at the federal level, but she’s from here and she went to Washington and spoke up for her values to make sure that everyone has opportunities for success. She speaks truth to power. She doesn’t always go along with what the party says or with what leaders above her expect or want, and she does what she feels is right. This kind of leadership is my north star for when I serve on the council. 

For a long time, there have been powerful interests that influence Irvine in ways that aren’t always in the best interest of residents. And some people are using Irvine politics as a stepping stone for other aspirations. Or they are making decisions that are driven by being able to raise a lot of money for them to go to the next level in politics. That’s not always good for the city either. 

Irvine Watchdog: Would you complete a term on council and not go out seeking higher office if you are elected? 

Starke: Yes, I will commit to serving on the council. I don’t have designs to run for another office.

Irvine Watchdog: Are there any political or other causes you were involved in previously that might tell us more about you and what drives you to serve? 

Starke: My kids attended Cypress Village Elementary School, a Title I school, a lot of those kids are below the federal poverty line here. There are a lot of holes that need to be filled. So for a lot of activities, there were suggested donations. When I started to volunteer on the PTA, I realized how important it was to have extra funds coming in to pay for buses for a field trip. A lot of families can pay extra money for outside enrichment and extracurricular activities, but I think it is important for all kindergarteners to get exposed to art. A lot of activities we couldn’t have if the PTA wasn’t involved. The experience of being involved in PTA really made me think about the inequities in the school system and also the inequities we see in the city and residents who get services and those that don’t get as good of services. 

To sum up how I feel, I would like for our society to be more fair. We don’t live in a perfect world, but I think we should strive for more fairness. 

One example of this is the group of people in the city who want badminton courts, and the city built two outdoor badminton courts, but they aren’t really optimal because of the wind. For the past several years, this group has been getting the runaround about their request, so now there are some badminton courts in a gym, but the times that these courts are available aren’t optimal. One of the times is when a lot of kids should be at home eating dinner or doing homework. The way the city allocates court times is biased toward youth sports organizations, so if you play badminton and aren’t in one of these organizations, it’s hard for them to get gym time. It has impacted the AAPI community who play badminton. I don’t think the city is not providing the gym times to discriminate against the AAPI community, but it’s an example of how things can happen that impact a group that would like to have access to amenities and services. 

Irvine Watchdog: Is there anything else you might want to add or share? 

Starke: I think district elections are going to be good for Irvine because in a city as large as ours, you aren’t going to know all of the problems everywhere or be neighbors with the folks who are complaining about the badminton courts. 

The city does a good job of PR and making things look good on the surface. I was talking to a reporter who asked about my answer regarding the CAAP [Climate Action and Adaptation Plan] plan, and I said we don’t really have a CAAP, we have a plan of a plan. The reporter insisted that there was a plan, but when I was talking to an environmental organization that has been working on this issue, they issued a report that was fact checked and there wasn’t an actual CAAP plan.* But the city makes it look like they are addressing climate goals and reducing emissions. We should pay attention to the city’s messaging and PR. Some people think of Irvine like a product and how it’s marketed, but really the city should be working for the residents.  

*Irvine Watchdog note: Climate Action Campaign has issued a report on cities in Orange County and their climate plans. As of publication, Irvine does not have a legally binding CAAP.