Questions Raised After Mai’s Office Contracts With Firm Led By Ally
Concerns have been raised over a recently discovered $44,000 marketing services contract that was awarded to a company whose CEO has close personal ties with Vice Mayor James Mai. The contract with Eight Horses advertising agency, which is owned by former Irvine City Council candidate and longtime professional associate of Mai, John Park, has been circulating on social media and was for services involving website development, email campaigns, and marketing strategy for the Vice Mayor’s Office. The service is for an eight-month period beginning November 10, 2025, to be paid by the City of Irvine using, according to Mai, his allotted discretionary funds each City Councilmember receives on an annual basis. In the contract, the City designates Steven Alves, Mai’s Chief Executive Assistant, to act on the City’s behalf and for Park, Eight Horses CEO, to act as the consultant.
Mai, Alves and Park have close political and professional ties. Alves managed key aspects of John Parks 2024 District 1 City Council campaign. Mai and Park worked together at the Greater Irvine Republicans political club in positions of leadership since 2018. Alves serves as Mai’s Chief Executive Assistant since Mai assumed office in December of 2024.
Since the contract was entered into, Vice Mayor Mai rebranded his individual website with a new look and updated content. “Eight Horses had a temp contract with my office,” said Mai to Watchdog. “I had let go of one of my staffers and was down a person. That person was paid $68,000 a year. I had [Eight Horses] on a contract at roughly $4,000 a month. Now that [the contract] is up, I’ve hired a new guy, Luke, so I won’t be needing their services anymore.” When asked how the services were paid for and why Mai selected Eight Horses, he provided a statement.
The contract was paid from my Council Office budget, not City general funds, and the amount was below the threshold requiring a formal bidding process. I selected the firm based on my familiarity with its work, reputation, and ability to provide the services needed. In 2024, the company also assisted my campaign with a limited number of mailers and printing services. Eight Horses was neither my campaign consultant nor campaign manager. When the office contract was executed, my office operated with fewer staff than authorized. Outsourcing certain functions proved to be a more cost-effective alternative to immediately adding another full-time position. Since then, additional staff have been hired, and the contract was not renewed.
Since February 10, 2025, the Vice Mayor serves the Board of Directors of the Irvine Community Land Trust (ICLT), a semi-public nonprofit aimed at providing affordable housing. Up to two City Council representatives may sit on the Board at any given time. At the Board meeting after Mai joined ICLT, the organization established a marketing and branding committee to go over website updates and rebranding. Since then, the website underwent updates and rebranding and now includes a caption at the bottom of the page that says, “website produced by Eight Horses”. When asked about ICLT using Eight Horses, Mai said, “I participated in the vendor selection process as a member of the Board of Directors. ICLT reviewed multiple vendors and ultimately voted unanimously to retain Eight Horses for the new brand, website redesign project, and marketing services. To the best of my recollection, Eight Horses was also the most cost-effective proposal presented to the board.” However, City Councilmember William Go, who formerly sat on the Board of ICLT with Mai in 2025, contradicted Mai’s account of a unanimous vote by the ICLT Board. “James was a part of that committee. I was not involved in the process. [There was] probably one or two other board members on [the committee]. I don’t remember voting on it. They don’t abide by Brown Act. According to legal they are exempt.” Since then, Go was replaced by Councilmember Kathleen Treseder on the ICLT Board. Treseder’s office did not provide comments on the issue.
Watchdog inquired with ICLT regarding procurement of Eight Horses Services. The Executive Director of ICLT, William Hughes, said “ICLT is a private non-profit and operates under the rules and policies of the State non-profit guidelines. Because we are not a public agency, we are not required to comply with certain things that a public agency may be required to follow. ICLT’s procurement process is different than that of public agencies.”
The City of Irvine maintains dedicated pages to each Councilmember on their official City website. However, most of the Council maintains their own individual Councilmember websites using separate domains and not hosted by the city. Councilmember Melinda Liu maintains her website to give District 1 residents updates and information. “My office would work on it”, Liu said. “Each office does things differently, so we do our own.” Each Councilmember is given an operating budget (not including stipends or benefits) to maintain their office staff and expenses, totaling roughly $357,400 annually. However, when including stipends, benefits and community partnership funds, depending on the on the chosen staffing models, a Councilmember may receive over $600,000 from the City to support their office and daily operations. Since Irvine expanded to a seven-member Council, this allocated Council office expense is over $2.5 million a year. These expenses have come under increased scrutiny as the City is facing multi-million dollar budget short falls.
Councilmember Betty Martinez Franco, who does not maintain a separate website, told Watchdog, “I considered to have one in the beginning, but that would have meant spending money and having someone permanently maintaining it. And… there are better and more efficient ways of communicating and connecting with my residents: social media.” In addition to Mai and Liu, Mayor Larry Agran and Councilmember Treseder also maintain such websites.
Mai expressed frustration with the scrutiny he has received on social media regarding Eight Horses, as some Nextdoor social media users accuse Mai of cronyism and using City funds to informally campaign for potential future elections. “[Christina] Shea is mainly behind this issue. I guess at the GOP is where this all started. They are out to get me still, apparently.” Mai continued, “Eight Horses is awesome. I knew of them before politics and when I owned a marketing firm myself, I knew John Park long before politics. His company is great.” Although Vice Mayor Mai stated that the funds he used for the City to contract with his close associate’s marketing business were part of his discretionary funds, it is not clear if any other vendor was considered for the services. Likewise, with the ICLT contract with Eight Horses, there is no evidence of a competitive bid process. Watchdog is unaware of any other City Contracts with Eight Horses, but investigations continue.
9 Comments
Mari Fujii
June 11, 2026 at 9:13 amSo maybe it’s OK Councilmember James Mai spent city $$ and hired his friend John Park to create his council website since the money came out of his council’s bucket of money — and kudos to Councilmember Franco for not spending any city money to do her own council website.
.
But for Mai to be part of the committee at the Irvine Community Land Trust — and meet behind closed doors at meetings that weren’t subject to the Brown Act — and hire his friend John Park again? Something smells fishy.
.
As a retired web developer, I know there are *plenty* of web designers/small marketing communications firms to choose from in Irvine/OC. It should be a no-brainer to steer clear of deals that have personal ties to councilmembers in which, I’m sure, ICLT could’ve found a web designer/small Marcom firm at equal quality and similarly low cost.
.
Councilmember Mai could can do better by not giving preferential treatment on city deals to close friends.
Alan
June 11, 2026 at 5:17 pmDoes not surprise me at all that Treseder replaced Go on the ICLT board. Treseder & Mai also serve together on the OCPA board. They have been pretty much joined at the hip for about the last 6 months. The odd couple.
Jeremy Ficarola
June 12, 2026 at 6:55 amMr. Meyerson, it should be noted, the Eight Horses contract was entered into by James Mai and 1-2 other ICLT Board members before Treseder joined ICLT. William Go was the other Councilmember but he was not part of the vendor selection process. I do agree, to a certain level, that Treseder wants to distance herself from this because she has a decent working relationship with Mai on other issues like OCPA. In fact, Watchdog asked for comment on this issue and Treseder’s office declined to comment. Honestly, declining to comment is probably a smart thing to do but also remember, this cronyism issue with Mai and Eight Horses has nothing to do with Treseder. Also, to push back that Mai and Treseder are “attached at the hip”, I don’t see that. Look no further than their recent votes on RCV.
Alan
June 12, 2026 at 8:29 amI agree with what you are saying. They do not vote the same way on everything BUT. You know I am at almost every council meeting and the amount of back and forth talking in each others ear is over the top. Something you will not see if watching on television. They both share the same disdain for the Mayor and I believe that is their common ground. All you have to do is pay attention.
Max Egorov
June 11, 2026 at 10:01 pmAll current council members need to be replaced, and some of them, hopefully, will be replaced this November. They promised residents a ballot measure about open space, but now they talk about RCV.
This issue alone speaks very loudly about the fact that these council members have their own agenda, ignoring residents and council members own promises.
Jeremy Ficarola
June 12, 2026 at 6:49 amCouncilmembers can walk and chew gum at the same time. The RCV issue is heavily influenced and supported by local grassroots efforts just like the Oak Creek issue. But the Oak Creek quagmire is a different issue and infinitely more complex. The Council has many many many issues on their plate.
Max Egorov
June 12, 2026 at 11:58 amYes RCV heavily influenced agree. It was only 2 meetings with let’s be honest – low number of people who came to speak when we talked about open space the chamber was full. Don’t even compare RCV to open space issue. In fact I can be supportive to RCV but it is dishonest to put RCV ballot ahead of open space people were promised back in August 2025 can your RCV issue wait a few months?
Let’s be honest and transparent for everyone. We need two ballots this November because council promised us.
And if Mai violated the law he needs to pay for this we have district attorney hopefully he will look into it. We have even recent examples.
No one above the law.
rgurien
June 12, 2026 at 9:02 amMai’s contract awards are not in violation of the City’s procurement rules, but I recommend someone check to make sure that Park signed the Levine Act disclosure and compare it against the timing if the ICLT contract award.
ICLT is subject to the Brown Act under the following conditions:
54952(c)(1)(A) A legislative body delegates some of its functions to a private corporation or entity
54952(c)(1)(B) If a legislative body provides some funding to a private corporation or entity and appoints one of its members to serve as a voting member of entity’s board of directors.
The only way ICLT can be considered a truly separate entity from the City is if the City were to not claim the land in its asset portfolio.
Irvine Observer
June 18, 2026 at 8:42 amMr. Mai’s response reads: “The contract was paid from my Council Office budget, not City general funds…”. But that only shows how Mr. Mai considers “his” Council office budget as akin to a private entity. This money was part of the City’s budget. The allocation into a Council Office budget doesn’t give it a lesser status than other public money. Mr. Mai is acting as if he should have as much freedom with these funds as he does with his personal checking account. That says a lot.
Comments are closed.