Shea Won’t Run for Council Seat in November

Irvine Mayor Christina L. Shea will watch November’s election from an unfamiliar position--the sideline.

After eight years as the city’s most high-profile elected official, Shea said Tuesday that she won’t seek a City Council seat this year when term limits force her to relinquish the mayor’s gavel.

Shea, 50, said she has subsidized her $720 monthly pay from the city with her personal savings during her tenure at City Hall, including four years as mayor and four on the council. She said she’ll put public service on hold while she bolsters her finances in the private sector.

“As the city has grown, and with the amount of time I’ve spent handling the mayor’s duties, there’s no way I could handle another [full-time] job,” she said. “It’s almost been 10 years now and I just don’t have the money anymore.”

Although term limits prevent Irvine elected officials from more than two consecutive stints in office, Shea could run for one of two council seats that will be up for grabs this fall.

“I’ve thought about it and people have asked me whether I’ll be running again, and I’m sure I would be successful,” she said. “I’ll be very sad to step down, but I just can’t afford it anymore.”

Shea’s political career began inauspiciously in 1988 when she assisted her then-husband Michael Shea’s unsuccessful bid for the City Council. Although reviled by the gay community for her support of Measure N--an initiative that excluded homosexuals from protection against discrimination--the former homemaker parlayed a position as chair of the city’s Community Services Commission into a council seat four years later.

She defeated incumbent Sally Anne Sheridan in a hotly contested race for the city’s top job in 1996. Shea’s platform called for elected officials to have more decision-making responsibilities, be more accountable for their actions and rely less on the direction of city employees.

A second term followed when Shea’s 1998 reelection bid went unopposed.

Shea has remained in the spotlight throughout her tenure, as a spokesperson for the Irvine Sports Club in a series of print ads and as one of the leading opponents of plans for an international airport at the former El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

The mayor’s personal life became public last fall when her 21-year-old daughter Stephanie was arrested on suspicion of possession of methamphetamines. Shea’s stunned reaction led to a highly publicized rift with council members.

The mayor told her colleagues that the Irvine Police Department mishandled the arrest and accused Councilman Larry Agran of leaking information about the bust to the media. A furious Agran denied leaking anything and demanded an apology. The situation exploded when Councilman Dave Christensen released to the news media voice-mail messages Shea had left about the affair.

Shea still smarts over the incident, but she asserted that running a bustling city of 130,000 and battling the Orange County Board of Supervisors’ designs for El Toro as an airport have put any personal differences with Agran on the back burner.

“When someone tries to harm someone, I would not say the bad blood has disappeared. That’s just not something you do,” she said. “But I work well with everybody. I try to put personal issues aside to make sure the city issues are predominate.”

Shea doesn’t rule out a return to politics. In the meantime, however, she said she wants to get into business development and plans to use contacts in Mexico and Taiwan to open trade with Irvine’s high-tech companies.

The mayor doesn’t plan to start at the ground floor.

“I like to be in charge, so any business I get into I’d like to be CEO,” she said with a laugh. “I’m always looking at the stars for some reason.”