When Irvine's Mayor Don Wagner gave his  "State of the City" address at the Irvine City Council meeting on Tuesday, February 26, 2019, he had many positive things to talk about, including the  tremendous progress that we've made on fulfilling the promise of the Great Park - a new 80,000 square-foot ice arena, a 1200-seat  Great Park Championship Baseball Stadium and new additional baseball and softball fields, a 5,000-seat  Championship Soccer Stadium, a 2.5 mile nature corridor, plus an  agreement with Wild Rivers to build a new water park and an  exclusive negotiating agreement with Pretend City Children's Museum to relocate in the Great Park.

The Mayor reminded us that  Irvine remains America's safest city and was recently declared  one of the safest cities in the world.  

He also noted that Irvine was rated the  number one city in the nation in fiscal strength.

He spoke about the advances that our City Council has made in providing for  greater openness and transparency in our budget process, pointing to our new two-year budget cycle, our new five-year planning program and our new Irvine Sunshine Ordinance that expands public notice of agenda items to four times longer than California law requires.

These are indeed wonderful accomplishments that all residents of Irvine should be proud of.

But much more remains to be done and problems remain to be solved. 

Here is what I would add to the Irvine State of the City address:

Climate and the Environment 

Irvine must become ever more environmentally responsible and should be a national leader in meeting the existential ecological demands of the future.

As Chair of the  Irvine Green Ribbon Environmental Committee, I have helped guide Irvine toward greener policies related to energy, recycling and waste management, mobility, open space and water issues.

But more must be done.

I would commit to establishing a Climate Action Plan for Irvine, with the goal of eliminating half of all greenhouse gas emissions in the city and aiming for all electricity used in the city to be from renewable sources by 2035.

Climate Action Plans make it easy for the public to see what cities plan to do to meet state targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Sprinkling such actions throughout the General Plan is not as transparent and is not in the best interest of the public.

Other cities, including San Diego, Los Angeles, Long Beach, Seattle, Baltimore, Phoenix and Houston already have Climate Action Plans. As the self-proclaimed City of Innovation, Irvine should be a leader in this national effort.

An Irvine Climate Action Plan would benefit both the environment and the regional economy, creating new jobs in the renewable energy industry, improve public health and air quality, conserve water, more efficiently use existing resources, increase clean energy production, improve the quality of life, and save taxpayer money.

Most importantly, a Climate Action Plan would fulfill our obligation to ensure that Irvine remains a beautiful green city for future generations.

Traffic Congestion and Traffic Safety

We have made significant progress in alleviating Irvine's traffic congestion.  We  expanded the iShuttle to provide more transportation.  We've enabled left-hand turns in some intersections to allow traffic to move faster and more efficiently.  We've widened roads and made other improvements.

But we need to do more.

I would announce a plan to create a greener, smarter, and more efficient transportation future by further expanding our iShuttle.  For example, a route that would take people from UCI to the Spectrum would be good for both Irvine traffic reduction, Irvine's air quality, as well as for UCI students and Spectrum businesses.

Our roads are not only too often congested, they are also becoming too dangerous, as people fail to obey stop signs and follow the rules of the road.

I have been  working with residents and the Irvine Police Department on improving the safety of our pedestrians and bicyclists, especially our children, and I held a  Town Hall Meeting on Traffic Safety with the Chief of Police, but more must be done.

I would propose a major comprehensive traffic safety project, focusing on ensuring motorists come to a full stop at stop signs.  This project would involve education, increased enforcement and deploying more advanced stop sign technology.

Many cities have lighted stop signs.  Irvine should have them as well.  

Our Irvine Police should also receive a clear mandate to take whatever enforcement actions are necessary to make our streets safer for our residents.

The Great Park Cultural Terrace

This month, we will celebrate the Gr and Opening of the new 270,000-square-foot Great Park Ice Area- the largest ice-skating facility in California and one of the largest in the United States.

I am also looking forward to the announcement of further progress on the return of Wild Rivers Water Park.

I also continue to support a  veterans cemetery within the hallowed grounds of the former Marine Air Station El Toro, where so many brave men and women flew to Vietnam and other war zones, some never to come back.  My proposal (along with Christina Shea) to locate the veterans cemetery on land that had been intended as a golf course has been through the Commission process and will soon come before the City Council.

What we need is a vision and a plan for completing the next crucial phase of the park - the Cultural Terrace.

The City Council entered into an exclusive negotiating agreement to bring  Pretend City Children's Museum to the Cultural Terrace.  When the relocation of Pretend City to the Great Park Cultural Terrace initially came before the City Council in 2017, I strongly supported it and was disappointed when we did not have the votes to act at that time.  I am extremely pleased that we have moved forward this year.

But much more needs to be done to truly create the Cultural Terrace as the jewel of the Great Park.

The Great Park's Cultural Terrace would be the ideal location for a  natural history museum, showcasing the natural history of our area.  Importantly, the history of the Juaneno/Acjachemen and Gabrielino/Tongva - our County's indigenous people - needs to be told!

In fact, while Orange County is the only county in Southern California that does not have a natural history museum, Orange County is already home to a fabulous collection of fossils and artifacts in the Dr. John D. Cooper Archaeological and Paleontological Center, now located in several warehouses in Santa Ana. This rich history of fossils and artifacts, perhaps one of the most important fossil-bearing areas in North America, if not the world, needs to be curated and displayed.

Our county's rich store of fossils and artifacts ought to be open to all in a magnificent museum - a new Orange County Natural History Museum in the Great Park!

I also support the  California Fire Museum and Safety Learning Center and preserving the heritage of our California firefighters in a permanent facility in the Great Park.

I have long been a strong advocate for  botanical gardens in the Great Park's Cultural Terrace.  In fact, every survey we've done has shown that gardens are among amenities that people most want in the Great Park.  I agree with the Great Park Garden Coalition that "We need places where children can experience nature and explore, where all can find refuge from the ever-increasing urban density and traffic, where people of all ages and abilities can experience beautiful outdoor spaces. All great urban parks have great garden spaces: Golden Gate Park, Central Park, Balboa Park."

The Great Park in Irvine should have great gardens, too.

Attainable Housing

Finding solutions to the housing crisis and alleviating homelessness has been a priority for me, both as a member of the Irvine City Council and as Chair of the  Irvine Community Land Trust.

Irvine has been a model in this area and the Land Trust concept, now being adopted by Orange County and many other cities, is something that Irvine has pioneered.  No other city has a Land Trust like we have, and other cities are working to copy ours.

I'm proud of what the Irvine Land Trust has accomplished in the past year.

In 2018, we opened  Parc Derian, which brings 80 new units of housing for working families, veterans, and special-needs residents of Irvine.  We also began work on Salerno, a new 80-unit rental community. Like Parc Derian, Salerno will provide permanent affordable housing for working families, veterans, and special-needs residents of Irvine.

Significantly, we have begun to  develop our first homes for ownership with help from a new partnership with Habitat for Humanity of Orange County. This new Irvine community, called Chelsea on Native Spring, located north of Irvine Boulevard, will include 68 affordable home for sale to income-eligible veterans, working families, and young professionals.

In all, that's 466 households, and more than a thousand people, who can comfortably live, work and raise families in Irvine directly because of the work of the Irvine Community Land Trust.

In addition to my work on the Irvine Land Trust, I have traveled to Pittsburgh and San Antonio to see what other cities have done to successfully combat homelessness, and I have traveled to Sacramento to encourage the legislature to revise regulations and the tax code to make it easier to build affordable housing.

I would reaffirm Irvine's commitment to support the Irvine Community Land Trust as successful model for other cities to emulate in providing housing for diverse income levels, and as a basis for alleviating the homelessness crisis with permanent affordable housing. 

A Vision for the Future of our Great City of Irvine

I would like to see our city leaders display the truly democratic spirit that united all decent people in our community in condemning religious and racial bigotry, and not the divisiveness that is created when wedge issues, outside our jurisdiction and purview, are brought before the City Council.  Focusing on wedge issues does not produce positive policies that bring our city together, but instead a theatrical politics of division that can only drive us apart.

It is best for our city and our residents when we work for the common good by looking for common ground.

Our great City of Irvine is truly blessed with wonderful people, a beautiful natural environment, thriving businesses, and remarkable schools. What Irvine needs is a vision for the future that focuses and energizes our continued quest for being the very best place in the world to live, work and raise a family.