IRVINE

Rather than hire an outside company to manage the city’s 30 crossing guards, the City Council voted 3 to 2 Tuesday to allow the city to continue to do so. If All City Management Inc. assumed the management duties, Irvine police officers would no longer be summoned to replace sick guards, something Irvine police regularly do.

Councilman Larry Agran said officers filling in for sick guards amounts to “genuine community policing” and said turning over such duties to an outside business was “so wrong, it is worthy of ridicule.” Councilmen Greg Smith and Mike Ward disagreed, saying they would prefer that the officers, who on average spend about 300 hours a year filling in for sick guards, spend that time patrolling city streets.