Vision for Irvine Draws Criticism

“Planners’ Vision Must Be Updated for Challenges of a New Age” (Commentary, Dec. 6) is more of the same old corporate-hype from (former) Irvine Co. executive Ray Watson.

The Irvine Co. never misses an opportunity to defend its vision for Irvine. After all, Irvine isn’t really a city anyway. In Watson’s words, Irvine is Donald Bren’s “canvas upon which to put his art.” It is no small irony that Mr. Watson, often heralded as “Irvine’s Architect and Founder” doesn’t even live in the city he has so many firm opinions about, preferring instead the serenity of a Newport Beach residence.

Watson commends bringing “this community together” in response to the “rapidly growing cancer of societal negativity.” This from the executive of a company which actively stifles public dissent on a weekly basis in its “community newspaper,” works behind the scenes at City Hall and in Sacramento to arrange favorable political outcomes, carefully places former company employees in key positions of public authority (as with the TCA) and encouraged Irvine officials to sue its own citizens to prevent another development referendum.

Negativity indeed! That’s what New Yorkers call chutzpah and the rest of us call nerve. Some would say it’s the pot calling the kettle black!

Mr. Watson is pleased to entertain the “updating of Irvine’s vision to fit the 21st Century”--just so long as the updating takes place on terms and conditions determined by the Irvine Co.

Disagree with the Irvine Co., criticize its decisions or the “Master Plan” and you’re accused of “negativity” and “divisiveness” by Mr. Watson or any number of ready company surrogates. As a frequent critic of the Irvine Co., I know from where I speak and understand in the most personal terms possible the price opponents of the Irvine Co. pay for speaking passionately and openly about Irvine’s future.

Only when the Irvine Co. stops excluding alternative voices and starts actively including them in the dialogue will Irvine have a chance of creating a new consensus for the 21st Century. Any consensus must be fashioned by the citizens who live on Mr. Bren’s canvas and not by the artist or his eager assistants.

MARK P. PETRACCA

Irvine