ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : Agran Leaves His Creative Mark

Before he was defeated for reelection on Tuesday, few who knew of him were indifferent to Irvine Mayor Larry Agran. His city became a laboratory for social policy, whether it banned chemicals that damaged the ozone, or whether it charted a futuristic monorail system. He drew national attention for leading the discussion on converting the defense industry. All the while, observers near and far marveled at how this progressive Democrat managed to dance on the head of a pin in the heart of conservative Orange County.

Alas, despite all the attention, Agran had his day of reckoning with his constituency. All politics is local in the end, and it is the local voters that any mayor has to please. Election Day they decided that it was time for a change. The new mayor will be Republican Sally Anne Sheridan, who pledges a city government more conventional in its approach to planning and growth.

That may be. But after a bitter campaign concluded, even the mayor-elect said that many of Agran’s policies would remain in place and that she was reluctant to throw out his achievements.

That sounds like a prudent approach and a sign, too, that Agran had managed to accomplish something more than instituting curbside recycling--which he did--and something more satisfying than lobbying for the successful passage of Proposition 116, earmarked to deliver $125 million to Irvine to build a monorail.

For better or worse, Agran had managed to get people to consider new ways of looking at the role of municipal government and even to agree that some of his programs were worth keeping when he was thrown out of office.

His supporters will wonder if Agran was too far ahead of his time. Detractors likely will miss having an easy political target to kick around. But if Larry Agran’s think tank has closed up shop in Orange County, at least it got many people to think imaginatively about local government while it had center stage.