Mayor Christina Shea Moves to Counter Petition-Led Initiative Seeking to Preserve Veterans Cemetery At ARDA Site
City Council Meeting – Tuesday, May 12, 2020, 4:00PM
Agenda
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Staff Report for Item 5.2
Mayor Christina Shea’s competing initiative aims to subvert the wishes of 14,531 residents who signed the citizen-led Veterans Cemetery Initiative Petition (“Initiative”) Tuesday night, that would place the cemetery at the ARDA site. The Initiative obtained more than the requisite number of signatures which were verified by the Registrar.
Here are the details of the ARDA Initiative from the staff report:
The City Council Has 3 Options on How To Proceed:
- Adopt the Initiative ordinance as is.
- Submit the Initiative, without alteration, to the voters at the November 3, 2020 General Municipal Election. If the City Council recommends this action, the cost to add this ballot measure to the November 3, 2020 General Municipal Election would be $8,500.
- Request a staff report on the effect the zoning change would have on municipal operations. The staff report would have to be submitted to the City Council no later than the June 9, 2020 City Council meeting for further action and review.
In addition, under Mayor Christina Shea’s direction, there will be a discussion that the City-Council sponsor a competing initiative on the November 3, 2020 ballot. Per the memo below from Mayor Shea, “I therefore request that the May 12, 2020 agenda include an item requesting the preparation of a City-Council sponsored initiative measure to confirm the Golf Course Site as the location for the Veterans Cemetery and to confirm that only small scale retail, park and open space uses will occur on the ARDA site.”
A City-Council sponsored initiative does not require 12,888 signatures. It simply requires 3 votes from the Council.
5 Comments
Susan Sayre
May 11, 2020 at 7:33 amAt first I wondered why the City Council would vote to place a competing initiative on the ballot at considerable cost when, should the citizen’s initiative not pass, the City’s selected site would remain the future site of the Veterans’ Cemetery. Then it dawned on me. Just as with the Citizen’s initiative, should the City’s initiative restrict zoning code land uses and it be approved by the voters, future City Councils could not alter the approved land use restrictions. Land use zoning code amendments would have to go back to the voters for approval. The land use restrictions would then be pretty much set in stone.
Bill Cook
May 11, 2020 at 9:20 amWe strongly urge the council NOT to adopt the disingenuous ‘citizens initiative’.
All know this is your former mayor weaseling out of his own ‘Amended and Restated Development Agreement’ by pre-emptive exclusionary zoning, despicably and thinly disguising his lies in repugnant stolen-valor VETERAN garb along with a fictional memorial park and air museum fantasy video. His fool scheme is a gross insult to our desire to have a genuine honorable Veterans Cemetery on old MCAS El Toro.
This disingenuous ‘citizens initiative’ is structured only to take ARDA off the market (it has no provision or requirement to actually BUILD a cemetery), removing it’s substantial sale value from potential Irvine revenue – just to spite FivePoint, and eliminating all on-going tax income on what may develop while placing further burden on your nearby unsettled residents. The Grand Jury report points this out.
As has been stated multiple times ARDA is unqualified, undesired, unapproved, unfunded and unaffordable, and will NEVER become a Veterans Cemetery. But Larry Agran cares not, as long as he thwarts FivePoint from his own development agreement.
This was true during Measure B where befuddled Irvine voters betrayed their Veterans and he destroyed the monumental Strawberry Field. It will be the same with this disingenuous ‘citizens initiative’
This disingenuous ‘citizens initiative’ also seeks to eliminate by further blatant zone manipulation the very desirable and much preferred Great Park Golf Course location and to negate current State law and Gov. Newsome’s signing statement which clearly define the CalVet analysis and site selection criteria.
This will be a State Veterans Cemetery, the CalVet selection should be presented to the Irvine voters before November, and fairly considered before the few will again be Agran-deluded into presuming a decision on behalf of all our Southern California Veterans.
Scott Hansen
May 11, 2020 at 3:27 pmI look forward to seeing the details of Mayor’s proposed initiative. If it rezones the ARDA site so that residential, hotels, and most commercial are prohibited, it might stave off the great fear that ARDA will become a giant subdivision. We’ll see.
BillSandlin
May 12, 2020 at 1:30 pmLarry Agran used us, veterans, to get his way and has no interest or plans in creating a veterans cemetery.
Larry Agran said the majority of Irvine veterans want the cemetery in the ARDA site. He has no idea what the Irvine veterans want.
One of the problems veterans organizations have is finding new members and not having a way to locate the veterans that live around us. I belong to a lot of the veteran’s organizations in America, like Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion. I am the Commander of the American Post in Irvine and I would like the address of the veterans in Irvine, but can not get them. Larry didn’t reach out to a lot of veterans because didn’t reach out to me or the veterans in my American Legion Post.
What about the veteran in Orange County? Isn’t this Veteran Cemetery for all the veterans in the area? I would like the veterans in Orange County to have a chance to voice their opinions in November. They might not be able to vote but can let Irvine Voters know how they feel about both sites.
It’s a shame Veterans will lose their chance of getting their cemetery if the ARDA site is the designated site. Larry will be the only winner. He will tell everyone he did his part and got the land for the cemetery and will do nothing more. He will tell the Irvine voters that the Irvine City Council is now responsible for preparing the land and creating the Veteran Cemetery. He will blame them if it is not done.
Larry Agran can do this and not feel bad about what the veterans lost. I just hope we can put this in the hands of the November voters.
Ferry Roland
May 30, 2020 at 9:56 pmNo. ARDA site should be the location of the cemetry site. Even if i don’t want the golf course to be built, the cemetry should be in the ARDA site.
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