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Irvine City Council Newsletter
July and August 2019
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Join Me and the Irvine Police Department at the Annual National Night Out Celebration Tues.,
Aug. 6, 2019!
The Irvine Police Department will host festivities at three locations throughout the City.
Join your Irvine neighbors and the
Irvine Police Department at the annual
National Night Out Celebration on August 6 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
Once again, the Irvine Police Department will host festivities at three locations throughout the City.
This free event features police vehicles, appearances by the Mounted and K-9 Units, crime prevention tips, and bounce houses and other activities for kids.
Grab a bite on a warm summer night from food trucks that will have items available for purchase.
Join us at these locations:
- Cypress Community Park, 255 Visions, Irvine CA 92618. Kids are sure to want to meet the officers and horses that make up our Mounted Unit, a new crowd favorite. One of our beloved K9s will be eager to greet children and adults alike. Get up close to police motorcycles, patrol cars, and a SWAT vehicle. Kids are encouraged to bring bikes and helmets for the bike rodeo.
- Adventure Playground @ University Community Park, Beech Tree Lane, Irvine, CA 92612. Hop into a police vehicle or visit with a K9 to start off the fun. Meet officers and learn about our Community Emergency Response Team, as well as other Department units. The popular Adventure Playground will stay open late for families to enjoy.
- The Ranch Neighborhood Park, 5161 Royale Ave, Irvine, CA 92604. Our Animal Services Unit will please crowds at the Ranch. Tour police vehicles, meet Police Explorers and Youth Action Team members, and learn about Crime Prevention.
National Night Out is an annual community-building campaign that promotes police-community partnerships and neighborhood camaraderie to make our neighborhoods safer, more caring places to live.
National Night Out enhances the relationship between neighbors and law enforcement while bringing back a true sense of community.
It also provides a great opportunity to bring police and neighbors together under positive circumstances.
Children at all three locations will receive a free IPD police vehicle squish toy while supplies last.
Join us to say Hello and Thank You to the men and women who make Irvine America's Safest City!
For more information, go to cityofirvine.org or call 949-724-7193.
See you there!
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I am thrilled that at my urging the Irvine City Council and the Fire Museum have now agreed that five acres in the Great Park will be designated for a state-of-the-art Fire Museum and Safety Learning Center.
As a long-time advocate for the
California Fire Museum and Safety Learning Center, and for preserving the heritage of our California firefighters in a permanent facility in the Great Park, I am thrilled that at my urging the Irvine City Council and the Fire Museum have now agreed on a Memorandum of Understanding for five acres in the Great Park to be designated by the City of Irvine for a 31,000 sq. state-of-the-art, interactive, sensory immersive Fire Museum and Safety Learning Center.
The mission of the California Fire Museum is:
- To preserve and protect the history and heritage of the fire service in general, with special emphasis on the California Fire Services.
- To collect, restore, preserve and exhibit apparatus, equipment, art and artifacts of the firefighting profession.
- To provide life safety, fire safety and fire prevention education to the community.
- To educate the public about firefighters, firefighting and emergency services.
You can read my blog post from August 2018 urging the Irvine City Council to support a Fire Museum at the Great Park
HERE.
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Orange County Register condemns recent move by the Irvine City Council to prevent Council Member Melissa Fox from putting items on the agenda.
As the Register states, "The transparent goal is to shut down the views of the political minority. Irvine officials said they want to stop 'grandstanding,' but one person's grandstanding is another's chance to raise vital concerns."
The Register also recognizes that while the new rule was adopted specifically to silence me, the effect of the rule will be to silence all disagreement and dissent:
"Fox has previously discussed supposedly 'divisive' issues ranging from flying the LGBTQ flag at City Hall to creating a veterans' cemetery near the Great Park. But this fracas isn't about the particular issues any member might want to discuss, but about whether a duly elected official has the right to publicly discuss them. Councils are not private clubs . . . These are the public's meetings and all officials, even minority voices, represent their constituencies. All elected bodies need to encourage wide-ranging discussions so the public can be part of the self-government process - and not just observers of a carefully crafted script. That's the essence of representative democracy."
Thank you to the OC Register for recognizing that public meetings in a real democracy cannot be stage-managed by the majority in Irvine for their own convenience and political advantage.
But I'll continue to raise my voice to speak for the policies and values you and I support -- like respect for LGBTQ people, a state cemetery for our veterans, implementation of a serious plan to tackle climate change, more accessible child care, ending sexual violence and discrimination in the workplace, building affordable housing, and ensuring greater government transparency -- as I was elected to do.
I have no intention of being silent.
And neither do you.
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The Solar Decathlon was once held in the Great Park, until the event was mismanaged, and the opportunity was squandered, by the Irvine City Council.
In a recent article in the Voice of OC, Chapman University Professor Fred Smoller and former U.S. Department of Energy official Richard King make a convincing case for a California version of the U.S. Solar Decathlon. The problem is, there already was a California-based Solar Decathlon - located at the Great Park in Irvine - until lack of support and mismanagement by the administration of then-mayor Steven Choi forced the U.S. Department of Energy to find another location elsewhere.
The
U.S. Solar Decathlon, which has been sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy approximately every two years since 2002, is an award-winning international competition that challenges collegiate teams to design, build, and operate solar-powered houses that are cost-effective, energy-efficient, and attractive. The houses are assembled at a central location for display, evaluation, and awards. The winner of the competition is the team that best blends affordability, consumer appeal, and design excellence with optimal energy production and maximum efficiency.
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Melissa Fox attending Solar Decathlon in the Great Park in 2013.
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As Smoller and King point out, since the Solar Decathlon's inception in 2002, more than a dozen California colleges and universities have participated, but no California colleges or universities are slated to participate in the next competition in 2020.
This lack of California participation is troubling, Smoller and King note, because the Solar Decathlon introduces new solar energy technologies to the market and accelerates their implementation; increases and educates the 'clean tech' workforce; educates consumers about clean energy; and demonstrates that energy-efficient and solar-powered housing is attainable, practical, and beautiful.
Smoller and King further point out that "as the U.S. surrenders its leadership position on fighting climate change, other nations have stepped in: Solar Decathlons are now being held in Europe, China, the Middle East and Africa. In addition to combating climate change, countries in these regions - especially China - are positioning themselves to take full advantage of the rapidly expanding green economy."
I wholeheartedly agree with Smoller and King in endorsing a California Solar Decathlon. California is the ideal location for a Solar Decathlon. California leads the nation, and the world, in developing new and cleaner energy technologies. We are leaders in requiring more effective clean energy standards and in fighting climate change. "To maintain California's leadership position in the field of clean energy, we must harness the creative energy of our youth, the academic community, industry and labor. By working together, this competition could set a new milestone in clean energy and help make California the sustainability capital of the world."
As then-Great Park Board Chair Beth Krom stated at the time, the Solar Decathlon was expected to "bring worldwide attention and economic development to the Great Park and the region and raise public awareness about the benefits of clean energy and energy conservation."
As
I wrote at the time, I was "excited about the potential economic and technological impact that the Solar Decathlon will have for Irvine and Orange County in the future."
But once the Solar Decathlon contract was awarded, the Irvine City Council, now led by Mayor Steven Choi, completely bungled the opportunity.
First, Mayor Choi and his allies on the Irvine City Council and the Great Park Board (which were then, as now, one and the same) dismissed the public relations firm that had been instrumental in getting the Energy Department to award the Solar Decathlon contract to the Great Park, without hiring any replacement firm - or even adopt a plan - to handle the publicity for the event.
The result was far less attendance than been had anticipated when it was assumed that the Solar Decathlon would be properly publicized.
Next, Mayor Choi and his allies on the City Council failed to provide proper signage and directions for the event, so that many people who planned to attend could not locate the venue within the uncompleted Great Park.
The City also failed to partner with science, engineering or community based groups to promote and engage with the Solar Decathlon.
In fact, Mayor Choi and his allies on the City Council were hostile to the very premises of the Solar Decathlon. It had been the idea of former Mayor Larry Agran to bring the Solar Decathlon to the Great Park, and the contract was awarded during Agran's tenure as mayor. Choi never embraced the event as truly belonging to Irvine or the Great Park, instead viewing it with suspicion as belonging to Agran and to Obama's environmentally pro-active and climate change conscious Department of Energy.
Crucially, Choi did not share the Solar Decathlon's basic rationale: concerns about the impact of human-caused climate change and the need for new, clean, energy technologies. Rather, Choi told his fellow Republicans that while "it is good to keep the environment clean but [he] completely questions the idea of global warming being caused by human intervention. He opposes cap and trade and other government imposed environmental regulations, calling them an extreme effort to tax businesses and economic growth."
In line with this anti-scientific thinking regarding the relationship between climate change and human use of fossil fuels, Choi not only cared nothing about ensuring the success of the Solar Decathlon, but ended Irvine's participation in the Wyland Foundation's National Mayor's Challenge for Water Conservation and failed to appoint a quorum for the Irvine Green Ribbon Environmental Committee, causing that important committee - which I revived, along with Mayor Don Wagner, and which I now chair - to cease meeting for the years that Choi was mayor.
As I said in 2016 when the U.S. Department of Energy announced that the Solar Decathlon would be held in Denver, not the Orange County Great Park, "It is extremely disappointing that the Solar Decathlon will no longer he held in Irvine because the Irvine City Council refused to support the continuation of the Solar Decathlon in the Great Park. The Solar Decathlon served as an international showcase for our city - our businesses and educational institutions - as among the world's leaders in scientific and environmental innovation, but our shortsighted City Council has allowed this tremendous opportunity to go elsewhere."
I agree with Fred Smoller and Richard King that a Solar Decathlon in California- a "leading-edge design competition which promotes innovation, education, and market expansion" of clean energy technologies - would be great for our students, teachers, schools and businesses.
That's why it's such a pity that the Solar Decathlon was once here in the Great Park, until the event was mismanaged and the opportunity was squandered by the Irvine City Council.
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All pictures that meet entry guidelines will be included in 2020 Irvine Animal Care Center wall calendar!
Is your dog, cat or rabbit ready for their close-up?
All pictures that meet entry guidelines will be included in our 2020 Irvine Animal Care Center wall calendar!
Photo fundraiser entrants receive a free print calendar, and 13 winners will have their pet featured in a full-month spread.
Online photo submissions will be accepted up to August 31, 2019.
Entry fee is $25 per photo or $100 for five photos.
Funds raised go toward the center's Enhanced Care, Foster Care, and Third Chance for Pets programs.
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Join Me on Sat., Aug. 17, 2019, for the Re-Opening of Irvine Lake!
700 acres in size and one of the most beautiful and peaceful places in Orange County, the lake has been closed to the public since 2011.
Join me on Saturday, August 17, 2019, for the official re-opening celebration at Irvine Lake!
Irvine Lake, 700 acres in size, is one of the most beautiful and peaceful places in Orange County.
Formed by the Santiago Dam, built between 1929 and 1931, the lake was originally called the Santiago Reservoir. The dam was built by the Irvine Company and the Serrano Irrigation District (now called the Serrano Water District), and is now owned by both the Serrano Water District and the Irvine Ranch Water District and operated by Serrano Water District.
The lake provides drinking water to Villa Park and some parts of Orange, and provides supplementary irrigation water to neighboring ranches. Stocked with largemouth bass, catfish, and trout, the lake opened to fishing by the public in 1941.
My family has wonderful memories of fishing on the lake. In fact, my husband and I went fishing there on our first date in March 1994!
Sadly, due to prolonged drought that drastically lowered water levels and
inter-governmental conflicts between the County and the Water Districts, the lake was closed to the public and fenced off in 2011.
This week,
Orange County Supervisor Don Wagner announced that the Irvine Company has deeded 29 acres of land adjacent to the lake to the County of Orange, and that an agreement has been reached among all the government entities involved to reopen the lake to the public for shoreline fishing.
The opening day event will include free breakfast, coffee and giveaways, and visitors can fish from the shore between 7:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m.
The public can access the lake during those same times every Friday through Sunday.
No fishing license will be required, but there will be a $5 parking fee. For now, no boats are allowed on the water.
The Longfin Fishing Tackle Store will be open.
Thank you to Supervisor Wagner and all the people who worked with the County, the Water Districts, and the Irvine Company to re-open Irvine Lake!
For more information, call 714-649-9111.
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Clear the Shelters!
Saturday, August 17, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The Irvine Animal Care Center is participating in Clear the Shelters, a nationwide adoption event hosted locally by NBC4 and Telemundo52.
For the fifth consecutive year, the Irvine Animal Care Center is participating in Clear the Shelters, a nationwide adoption event hosted locally by NBC4 and Telemundo52.
All adoptions will be just $20. Discount does not include licensing or puppy wellness fees.
For more information, please contact Irvine Animal Care Center at 949-724-7740.
Visitors are encouraged to arrive at least two hours before closing to visit adoptable animals, and adoptions stop one hour prior to closing.
To find out more about the adoption process and view available pets, visit
irvinenanimals.org
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Melissa Fox
Irvine City Council
Staff and Commissioners
Allison Binder, Lead Council Executive Assistant
Daniel Robertson, Council Executive Assistant
Lauren Johnson Norris,
Community Services Commissioner
Dustin Nirschl,
Planning Commissioner
Roger Sievers,
Finance Commissioner
Kenneth Montgomery, Transportation Commissioner
Zhihai Li,
Children, Youth and Families Committee
Dawn Antis,
Childcare Committee
Juneu Kim,
Senior Council
Richard Cody Prince,
Green Ribbon Environmental Committee
Fred Judd,
Investment Advisory Committee
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