A majority of Irvine voters are Republicans and yet for years Larry Agran’s progressive political machine has controlled the mayor’s office. It’s a reality Republican city councilwoman Christina Shea hopes to shatter next year. This morning Shea announced that she will run for the job herself.
Shea will face Agran’s Sukhee Kang and whatever shell Republican campaign Agran also secretly sponsors to the divide GOP voters.
Over the years, Shea has been the bee in Agran’s bonnet, especially on ethics, secrecy and government spending. Republicans hail her as a competent watchdog. Large numbers of Democrats often seethe at the mention of her name, believing she is an obstructionist to Agran’s lefty ideas. Still others in Irvine say Shea is a political lightweight.
Beth Krom, the current mayor and a member of Agran’s political machine, will exit the job next year due to term limits.
Shea served terms as mayor from 1996-2000 and has worked on the city council since 1992.
In the last mayor’s race, the Agran machine run an unknown Earl Zucht as a fake Republican candidate. It was a slimy but effective move that siphoned several thousand critical votes from legitimate Republican candidates and allow Krom to win.
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.