Irvine Mayor Don Wagner and his good pal Sheriff Joe Arpaio

Irvine Mayor Don Wagner and his good pal Sheriff Joe Arpaio
Two peas in a pod?

Mayor Don Wagner, henchman, Walmart greeter

Dandy Don, henchman, Walmart greeter, tool

     Dandy Don was an ambitious/ruthless/smart young Christian when he showed up in the "Saddleback" district back in 1998 with his my-way-or-the-highway manner, his veneer of attractiveness, and his barely disguised peevitude. I kinda liked him from the start, and so I teased him about being a "right wing lunatic," but he had no sense of humor about such things, so generally, though not entirely, he treated me and DtB as the enemy. I think he held back, enemy-wise, cuz, we were a type he simply could not understand, i.e., our kind does not appear in Ayn Rand novels.
     I still like Don—he did, after all, become an enemy to the sulfurous Tom Fuentes—despite his continued political wickedness and membership in the Moneyed Republican, Neanderthal division, club. He's like a troubled younger brother about whom one cannot quite manage to throw in the towel. Really, though, there's no hope for Don. None.
     Natch, a few years ago, he made the leap from mere college trustee to member of the State Assembly and then, finally, to Mayor of Irvine. All along the way, he's been a henchman and a tool, of course, for the usual moneyed interests. He doesn't do much to hide it. He's proud of it, I think.
     Yesterday, the OC Reg wrote about the fellow, focusing on his 2nd "state of the city" address:
Here's what you need to know.
     Oddly, all of the Reg's photos portray Don as a Walmart greeter (see).
     Here's the gist of the Reg story:
     Don Wagner gave his second State of the City address on Tuesday. There were no surprises. He highlighted issues facing the city.
     Irvine's a really safe city, he said, or so says the FBI. (But does Don still trust the Feebs, what with their anti-Trumpian plot?)

Rand

     "To add to the myriad of international corporations with offices in Irvine, Wagner traveled to London and Cambridge in England last month with officials from the Greater Irvine Chamber of Commerce and local businesses and universities. The delegation met with representatives from more than 20 life sciences companies, he said. The city is already a home to Edwards Lifesciences, which launched the first aortic valve approved in the U.S. that doesn't require open heart surgery."
     (I do believe that this Edwards outfit is working with IVC on some kind of partnership out at ATEP. It's likely to fall through though.)
     "The Orange County Great Park is taking shape, he said. The city in August hosted a grand opening of the first phase of the 194-acre Great Park Sports Park…. The Anaheim Ducks' community ice facility, the largest of its kind at least in California, is slated to open at the Great Park in November."
     Plus there'll be a golf course.
     What about traffic in the city? Well, "This [city] council is determined to meet those challenges." "That is why we have not approved a single housing project that puts more cars on the road."
     It turns out that "The city has also sued the county to stop its plan to develop 108 acres south of the Great Park into a large, profitable residential and commercial complex."
     Two voter initiatives are coming down the pike:
     "One is an initiative, led by the group Irvine for Responsible Growth, that would give voters the power to weigh in on whether sizable development projects in the city can move forward. The group is collecting signatures to put the measure on a ballot. Organizers said it's an effort to compete against lobbyists and campaign contributions from developers."

Kuo, Shea, Wagner

     (—I.e., voters are competing with Don, noted head of Irvine for Irresponsible Growth.)
     "Wagner ... said these residents want to 'abandon growth.'" (Straw Man fallacy.)
     There's a second initiative:
     "A group of residents who want Irvine to stick to its original plan to donate city-owned property north of the Great Park for the cemetery collected enough signatures for the referendum."
     That initiative? Don's agin it.
     To hear the whole speech, go here.

SEE ALSO

• Irvine Mayor Don Wagner ♡ Joe "the racist scofflaw" Arpaio - DtB, 10/31/17
• Anthony Kuo, Mathur's one-time protégé, is now Don Wagner's political pal (and they're owned by developers) - DtB, 11/6/16

FOLLOW THE MONEY:

$1.1 million in PAC money flows into Irvine elections - OC Register,
November 2, 2016. GAIDO was Wagner's opponent in the Irvine Mayoral race.

“Sheriff Joe is known around the country for his toughness and we need that kind of toughness in Sacramento if we are going to change things,” said Wagner. “Decades of mindless spending has created a fiscal mess that continues to destroy our state’s economy. You can bet I am going to approach our spending problem the way Sheriff Joe approaches law enforcement. —From Joe Arpaio endorses Wagner

The "toxic plume"

"The long-term effects of trichloroethylene [TCE, a solvent] on human beings is unknown. In animal studies, chronic trichloroethylene exposure has produced liver cancer in mice, but not in rats. Studies on its effects on reproduction in animals have been similarly inconsistent, and so no conclusive statements about its ability to cause birth defects in humans can be made."

--Wikipedia on "TCE"

or some reason, we never seem to hear much about the toxic plume beneath us here in Irvine, caused by 40 years of solvent dumping at the former El Toro Marine Base.

When I say "we," I mean denizens of Irvine Valley College in particular. (See plume map below.)

If you visit the Irvine Ranch Water District (IRWD) website (IRWD contamination history), you'll find this helpful "History of El Toro Contamination":

* 1985: [TCE] Contamination discovered
* 1989: Installed Well ET-1 [across the street from IVC] to slow plume movement. However, one well is not enough to remove the plume completely
* 1990: Dept. of Navy accepted its responsibility and Superfund site created
* 1994-2001: Negotiations with the Navy and the Dept. of Justice
* 2001: Settlement agreement reached: Navy agreed to pay for removal of the volatile organic compound contamination
* In October 2003, proposed project modifications were made, including changing well locations, and adding a shallow groundwater unit (SGU) volatile organic treatment facility near the former MCAS El Toro
* In February 2004, well site acquisition in Woodbridge was unsuccessful
* IRWD reached agreement with The Irvine Company (TIC) to take over existing TIC agricultural wells and pipelines, some of which can be incorporated into the Irvine Desalter Project. Therefore, construction costs were lowered, resulting in a more cost effective project



ecently, the IRWD has attempted to build a much-needed second toxic cleanup pump, but that got NIMBYd into oblivion. For the story, go to "Woodbidge nix sends well back to drawing board"

Some excerpts from that Irvine World News article:

The Irvine Ranch Water District is back to re-evaluating options in the project to clean up the plume of toxins in the groundwater under Irvine.

The Woodbridge Village Association board voted Feb. 4 to not allow the water district to drill a cleanup well near the community's North Lake Lagoon and to work with IRWD to find another solution in dealing with the "toxic plume."

The board had initially agreed to allow the water district to use the Woodbridge Lake well to pump trichloroethylene (TCE)-contaminated water from the plume in groundwater that extends from the old El Toro air base. The well would have been part of the larger project, dubbed the Irvine Desalter Project, which would clean up toxins from the air base that seeped into the groundwater over a period of about 40 years. One such cleanup well has been in operation at Irvine Center Drive and Jeffrey Road since 1989, but the water district says that one well is not enough.

Other wells will pump uncontaminated water upstream from the plume to help slow the progress of the plume's expansion and slow movement toward areas in the underground water that provide drinking water.

The plume also is headed toward areas in the aquifer that might be used in the future to supply Irvine with drinking water. And, the contaminated part of the water basin is a potential source of drinking water for the future.

...Some residents questioned why the project was named "Irvine Desalter Project," when it's a toxic plume clean-up.

...Without the cleanup well, the lake will continue to be filled with water pumped from the toxic plume by an existing well owned by the Woodbridge Village Association, as it has been since the lake was created. About two years ago, the association stopped using the well water to fill the swimming lagoon beside the lake, which is now filled with drinking-quality water. No TCE has been detected in the lake, according to association official Bob Figeira, though it has been detected in the existing well.

...At [a] meeting, environmental medicine specialist Mary McDaniel said that measures would be taken to ensure the safety for the community during the drilling of the proposed toxic plume well.

She said a study indicated that the project did not present a health risk during the drilling of the well or during the clean-up operation, which is estimated to last about 40 years.... (Feb. 12, 2004)


P.S.:

I ran across an interview of Ray Watson, former President of the Irvine Company (Watson). He designed the Woodbridge Village Association, which opened in 1976. In the interview (evidently in 2001), he explains why North Lake is warmer than South Lake:

The main idea was to have a recreational community connected by paths. We also came up with the idea of lakes. I don’t know if you ever heard the story, but the water that goes into the North Lake Lagoon is warmer than the water that goes into the South Lake Lagoon. This happened by accident in the sense that when we were drilling for water for the North Lake, we hit a natural hot water spring.

Yeah, but that's not all they hit.


Note: NIMBY = "not in my back yard"
It would seem that opposition to the El Toro Airport was largely fueled by NIMBYism, although other motives existed.
Trustee Fuentes was among the leaders of the opposition movement. Oddly, given their differing politics, so was Irvine's Larry Agran.