Agran, Sheridan Slug It Out in Debate

Above the jeers and cheers of about 100 people, incumbent Mayor Larry Agran and his political nemesis, Councilwoman Sally Anne Sheridan, traded insults and highlighted their differing positions during a contentious debate Thursday at UC Irvine.

In their first face-to-face confrontation, Agran and Sheridan berated each other’s previous City Council votes and questioned the motives on a host of issues ranging from open-space preservation to a ban on chemicals blamed for the slow destruction of the Earth’s ozone layer.

On the quad of the UCI student center, Agran criticized Sheridan’s vote to oppose Irvine’s ban on ozone-depleting chemicals, known as chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, which gave the city national recognition and prompted similar measures in other municipalities.

“Council Member Sheridan voted against our ordinance,” Agran said. “She has tried to thwart our open-space preservation policies from the beginning. She was lackluster with respect to CFCs and recycling and every other environmental initiative. Now, she has to be accountable for the record.”

Sheridan retorted by lambasting Agran’s desire to expand Irvine’s role in foreign relations, especially his vote to spend $90,000 for an international affairs department and a sister-cities program.

“The mayor makes headlines and I make progress,” Sheridan said. “We’re doing better at international relations than we are at local relations. We don’t get along with Costa Mesa, Newport Beach, Santa Ana, Tustin, the Board of Supervisors, the Orange County Transit District or the Orange County Transportation Commission, and, therefore, we have to go to Tsukuba, Japan.” Tsukuba is one of Irvine’s new sister cities.

Locally, Sheridan is endorsed by all five county supervisors and 50 council members from almost all of Orange County’s cities.

The two-hour showdown became even more heated when Agran resurrected Sheridan’s 1984 City Council proposal to build a City Hall on landmark Quail Hill, now a nature preserve. The Quail Hill development was supported by the Irvine Co., the giant construction firm which owns about a third of the city’s land.

In her defense, Sheridan said that she was on a committee to find a civic center site and that a lot of people were involved in the proposal.

“I’ll say there was a large number of people,” Agran responded, “virtually all of them employed by the Irvine Co., that prevailed upon you, as their best friend on the City Council, to propose the early and immediate development of Quail Hill.”

“That’s not true,” Sheridan interjected, her voice drowned out by boos and cheers from the crowd.

Earlier in the day, Agran tried to distance himself from developers by making available to the news media the names of 1,646 people who have contributed a record $85,139 in loans, money and non-monetary donations to his reelection effort.

Although state campaign disclosure laws do not require candidates to release the identities of people who contribute less than $100, Agran did so through his campaign manager, Angelo Vassos.

A review of the donations indicates that the occupations of the vast majority of Agran contributors appear to be unrelated to the construction industry. Of those who gave more than $100, roughly 5 to 10% work in construction-related trades.

“Despite my opponent’s cynical attempts to portray our effort as elitist,” Agran said, “the facts clearly demonstrate that my support comes from the people of Irvine, who have donated, on average, $40.68. These are not fat cats or high rollers.”

Throughout the campaign, Agran has described himself as an independent policy-maker who strives to keep developers at bay with an agenda of innovative planning ideas and slow-growth measures.

To differentiate himself from Sheridan, he has repeatedly labeled her a “puppet” of the Irvine Co. Agran claims that Sheridan hides her contributions from the company and other builders behind state laws that do not require her to publicly name those who donate less than $100.

Calling Agran’s disclosure of contributors a “ruse,” Sheridan said she was not the darling of developers but declined to make public donors giving her less than $100. She said that the law does not require it and that she wants to honor her supporters’ desire for privacy.

Earlier in the race, Sheridan made public her income tax returns and records of her and her husband’s property sales as real estate agents to head off criticism that she was exploiting her council position by handling home sales for more than a dozen city employees and Irvine Co. executives.

“I have provided the substance of disclosure in this campaign,” Sheridan said. “Mr. Agran has not even provided a very good appearance.”

Sheridan has raised $55,501 in campaign donations, of which an estimated 10% came from people who work in construction-related occupations, according to campaign disclosure statements filed Thursday.

Agran’s repeated attacks on developers during the race have angered not only Sheridan but some of the city’s builders, who consider him a hypocrite. They say they are tired of being browbeaten every election despite their support for some of Agran’s projects, including open-space measures and a proposed monorail.

Nevertheless, campaign disclosure statements show that some developers have contributed heavily to the Conservancy, an Agran-backed group that sought open space in the city, and to Proposition 116, a statewide initiative that could provide $125 million for a monorail in Irvine. The mayor, who spearheaded local fund-raising efforts for the ballot measure, raised $250,000 to $300,000, virtually all of it from the construction industry.