Irvine : Candidates Trade Charges at Forum

Candidates for City Council and mayor attended an occasionally hostile candidates forum Thursday night to field questions from the audience and from one another on subjects ranging from traffic to abortion.

The loudest applause from the audience of about 55 people came when a candidate for mayor and one for City Council criticized the current council as a rubber stamp for Irvine Co. development projects.

Mayoral candidate Marc Goldstone and council candidate Christopher B. Mears said they would require the Irvine Co. to provide more community facilities or to return other benefits to the community in return for approvals of large development projects.

“We can’t stop them,” Goldstone said of the Irvine Co., “but we can sure get a fair deal.”

Goldstone supports making all development projects subject to voter approval so as to encourage the Irvine Co. to offer community benefits.

Mayoral candidate Mike Ward, however, said that having a vote for each development would be foolish.

“If the citizens vote for every development project in Irvine, then you don’t need the City Council,” Ward said.

Mayoral candidate Helen Cameron said she would bring her experience as an eight-year member of the Irvine Unified School District Board of Education and her experience running two multimillion-dollar companies to the job. Candidate Al Nasser promised to bring common sense and ethical standards to the council.

During the forum, candidate Christina Shea brought up the administration of former Mayor Larry Agran as one of her reasons for running. She said she wants to help reverse the global perspective and “unneeded special-interest legislation” the Agran council had supported. Shea also said she is proud of her success in heading a 1989 campaign to overturn a city ordinance Agran supported that prohibited city employers from discriminating against homosexuals.

Mears, who with Shea is running for one of two open seats, criticized Shea for her work against the ordinance, saying it highlighted her “intolerance” as a member of the religious right.

Shea countered that Mears was using negative campaigning to criticize her. She later criticized Mears for his support for a monorail system in Irvine.