IRVINE : Council Candidates Have Say at Forum

Last-minute campaigning for one open City Council seat received a boost this week when two community groups held a forum for the five candidates.

Traffic congestion, whether to have a mayor elected by voters instead of the council, and possible conflicts of interest were some of the subjects addressed. It was sponsored by the Irvine chapter of the League of Women Voters and the North Irvine Village Assn.

The candidates have had less than three weeks to campaign because the state Court of Appeal didn’t rule until late last month that the special election to fill one open council seat was on.

A lower court had canceled the race after Mary Ann Gaido, a former councilwoman, won a lawsuit saying she had a right to the open seat.

Candidates in the race are Albert E. Nasser, 72, a semi-retired attorney; Genovica Niculescu-Balteanu, 59, a mechanical engineer; Michael Tague, 41, the assistant principal at Irvine High School; Bill Vardoulis, 51, an engineering company vice president and former councilman; and Carol Yocum, 52, a non-practicing attorney.

To reduce traffic, Tague and Yocum said, the city should strive for more commercial areas closer to homes so residents could get to work without a car. Tague also stressed alternative methods of transportation through and around the city, such as a rail or monorail system.

Vardoulis said planned transportation corridors around Irvine would give commuters an alternative to driving through city streets. Niculescu-Balteanu said traffic should be solved as part of a grand economic restructuring that would, in part, move jobs and people closer together to reduce the number of people needing to drive to work.

A resident also asked the candidates about how the city’s mayor should be chosen. The question of eliminating the city’s 2-year-old system under which voters elect the mayor is on Tuesday’s ballot as Measure E.

Nasser, Tague and Yocum oppose Measure E and support having voters elect the mayor. Vardoulis and Niculescu-Balteanu, however, said the directly elected mayoral system should be scrapped.

Members of the audience asked Tague and Vardoulis whether they saw possible conflicts of interest between their jobs and serving as council members.

Vardoulis said he had an attorney look into any possible conflict before he ran for the open seat.

Since he did not own any part of the Irvine engineering consulting company he works for, Vardoulis said, he would have little if any conflict with city business.

Tague said he could not see many decisions that would benefit him in his employment with the Irvine Unified School District.