IRVINE : 3 Candidates Won’t Take Part in Forum

Three candidates in Irvine’s coming city elections have refused to participate in a forum scheduled for today, saying the panel set up by the Irvine Conservancy and the Sierra Club is stacked against them.

Forum organizer Cam Walker says she offered to change the panelists and the moderator for the event set for 7 p.m. at the Irvine Civic Center. The event, which is to be broadcast on Community Cablevision, will be set up as a discussion, with several panelists chosen by the groups.

“I came back to them and offered them all sorts of things,” Walker said. “They refused to accept any of those concessions.”

But the candidates who declined to take part in the forum say it is the event sponsors that they don’t like. Incumbent Mayor Larry Agran helped to found the Irvine Conservancy, and Agran’s mayoral candidacy has been endorsed by the Sierra Club, Walker said.

Mayoral candidate Sally Anne Sheridan as well as City Council candidates William Art Bloomer and Barry Hammond declined invitations to the event.

“I’m not going to it because it is a political organization run by the mayor,” Sheridan said. “I felt that really it was not going to be an open forum.”

Agran said the decision by the three distressed him.

“We owe it to the voters to debate,” he said.

Six candidates are vying for the two open council seats in the June 5 election, and Sheridan and Agran will compete for the mayoral post.