D’oh!
Reading through the deposition of former mayor Sukhee Kang by the lawyer, Anthony Taylor, hired by the City of Irvine to investigate possible fraud and malfeasance, is pretty revealing. We can tell that Mr. Taylor is probing into issues that may relate to criminal activities, including the submission of false claims by the Great Park’s no-bid vendors, and not run-of-the-mill incompetence of the sort we see in local government all the time.
No, there is nothing specifically illegal about being dumb and ignorant.
And so shameless Sukhee submitted himself to three hours of interrogation in which he admits (or pretends to admit) a shocking lack of curiosity about specifics of the Great Park during the period of time that the once grandiose scheme melted into a big, wet puddle.
It was not Mr. Taylor’s job to delve into the lackadaisical way Sukhee carried out the job of mayor, other than to the extent that he may have been complicit in the commission of one or more crimes. We, however, may exercise a far wider latitude in our endeavors to question what Sukhee knew, and when he knew it; or, ultimately, whether that really matters as much as this bald fact: hundreds of millions of dollars were paid to a handful of politically connected consultants by the Great Park Board and the City of Irvine with virtually nothing to show for it.
And that’s a bottom line that nobody can explain away.
November 5, 2015 at 11:10 am
I like the part where the lawyer asks ol’ Suke whether or not he brought his business experience to bear on Great Park issues and he basically suggests that it was of no value at all. He was either downplaying his ability to avoid complicity in the disaster, or he really doesn’t know anything about running a business – experience that might have been quite valuable compared to any of the other idiots involved in Great Park management.
November 5, 2015 at 11:14 am
Man, I wuz partyin’ hard wif Suke chuguzzlin’ the purple drank while my ace boon coon wuz cleenin’ out the back a’ Sukes shoo sto’.
That boy cudnt run a pop stand.
November 5, 2015 at 1:55 pm
Your last sentence pretty much spells it out. Right now there is back and forth about the legitimacy of the audits done and how much they cost. It’s all a smokescreen that diverts attention from the bottom line: $250,000,000 gone and nothing to show for it except some housing development – NO GREAT PARK.
January 4, 2016 at 8:18 am
Well said.
Billions of dollars were wasted under Suhkee’s complacent and incompetent watch. He was given ample opportunity to lead in Irvine and do the right thing for his constituents. Suhkee, along with others, failed royally.
All of our so-called leaders (Quirk-Silva and Keller) should be held accountable for trying to further their own political careers at our expense.
January 4, 2016 at 1:34 pm
Cant wait to put a NO KANG sign in my yard. My neighbors will no doubt want one too.
January 4, 2016 at 2:21 pm
I’ll be wanting signs, too. I know of a few downtown Fullerton businesses that would like to display a sign as well.
Not sure, if you all have heard of a gentleman named Dwight Manley. He lives in Brea (part of the 29th district ) and he is a downtown Brea business owner. I believe that he owns one of the restaurants. He and some of the downtown business owners helped to run a successful campaign to run a scoundrel out of office in Brea named Brett Murdock. Large “No Murdock” signs appeared near Dwight’s downtown Brea property. These signs were highly successful in getting the attention of passers by on Imperial Highway. We should check to see if he is on board with a large “No Kang” sign being displayed in a similar fashion as the “No Murdock” signs.
Murdock is running for Congress though and so they may be using that space again to get the word out against Murdock. Doesn’t hurt to ask.
January 6, 2016 at 2:35 pm
Yeah, Murdock is another idiot as well. He was about to run for SD29 but instead of running against Kang, he decided to endorse the carpetbagger for state senate. Murdock was voted out of office back in 2014 due to his record and this website that lead to his defeat. http://www.breacleansweep.org/ . No Kang! No Murdock! After a year of Murdock being voted out of office, he now wants to run congress challenging Ed Royce? Good luck with that! People outside of Brea barely knows who Brett Murdock is. If Brett Murdock was elected congress, he would be a horrible replacement for Ed Royce.
January 4, 2016 at 4:24 pm
Doot doot doodly doo doo, doo doo!
Doot doot doodly doo doo, doo doo!
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages, we present to you the ringleader in the big Suhkee-moves-to-Fullerton act, Mister Keviiiiiiiiiin Deeee Leon!
On Thursday, January 28th at 6:30 pm at Original Mike’s in Santa Ana, we can expect a little visit from one of the ill-advised masterminds of this whole fiasco. It appears that the “Party” has invited Kevin De Leon to speak on his wishes and aspirations for the OC. This will be the first of many pit stops De Leon makes to our region, to presumably dump some change in Suhkee’s hat and drum up support for the shameless windbag.
January 6, 2016 at 2:50 pm
Doesn’t matter how much this State Senate Pro Tem Kevin De Leon throws in money and support for Kang, this is still not going to help his campaign as much. I really doubt that Kang is going to trail in the primary to his fellow Democrat challenger Josh Newman which Kang shows up as third place. Even if he manages to come in second place defeating Newman, he might even lose to Chang in a close general election due to negative ads criticizing Kang’s record in Irvine in regards to the Great Park funding, Kang’s agenda 21 empty iShuttle bus, and the safest city bullshit.
January 6, 2016 at 3:01 pm
To run an effective campaign to defeat Kang with these No Kang yard signs throughout the 29th State Senate district, hang these signs in the cities of Anaheim, Buena Park, Brea, Cypress, Fullerton, La Habra, La Palma, Stanton, Placentia, and Yorba Linda. (Major Streets and Intersections only!) For Example: Beach Blvd, Valley View Street, Euclid Street, Brookhurst St, Imperial Hwy, La Palma Ave, and Lincoln Ave. In Los Angeles County that is covered by the 29th district, cities of Diamond Bar and Walnut. Unincorporated Areas in Los Angeles includes Rowland Heights. (Major Streets and Intersections only!) For Example: Colima Road, Diamond Bar Blvd, Grand Ave, and Amar Road.
In San Bernardino county with city of Chino Hills, Grand Ave, Peyton Drive, and Chino Hills Pkwy would be a good place to put up these Anti Kang signs.
January 6, 2016 at 3:39 pm
Hello everyone, check this blog out which I have discovered: http://thegreatparkaudit.blogspot.com/ . Hope you find something interesting from this website.
Here’s one post from this website:
Irvine’s attorney: “…there was an estimate of approximately 353 million in late 2003 by the city to construct the Great Park; and then by 2008 that estimate had changed, and it had increased to 1.6 billion. Do you recall why that change occurred?”
Sukhee Kang: “No I don’t.”
[An estimated cost increase of 1.25 billion dollars, and the Mayor of Irvine doesn’t have any idea why ! Does Larry have any idea why? Did he have more “visions”? They must have been very big ones. Larry said he was “confident it would be built and maintained using private funds.” A billion six private funds, do you think? Friends Of Larry (FOLs, or more appropriately, FOOLs, are having conniption fits over 1.25 million dollars spent on the audit. 1.25 billion? They don’t bat an eye, as long as Larry does it.]
Here’s another one which was originally from OCWeekly on this website:
Forde’s Theater: Overpriced PR Consultant Confesses Great Park Plan Was A Dream
by R. Scott Moxley, editor, OC Weekly
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
“Under Agran’s mismanagement, $200 million was spent without construction of a single, major promised park feature. Tens of millions of dollars were funneled to political operatives for ill-advised PR stunts or dead-end ideas. For example, it took more than 2,500 days just to open a couple of youth soccer fields. And who can forget the $125,000 playground that ultimately cost $1.25 million after Agran’s hand-picked consultants submitted pay demands.”
“The project wasn’t functioning well,” Forde answered, contradicting his earlier assertion about how well things were working until the new council majority took over in January 2013 and eliminated his gravy train. Agran and his loyal, robotic allies Beth Krom and Sukhee Kang spent years praising themselves for creating ‘a model’ for future public projects, but behind the scenes, screaming, name-calling, cursing, backstabbing, cronyism and gross incompetence marred the languishing endeavor.”
[My remarks: This is what Larry calls “enlightened public planning”? Oh please! Larry also says to this very day that the Great Park will be developed and maintained in perpetuity with “private dollars.” (ocgp.org)
Forde called the audit “a witch hunt.” This is always the rhetoric of politicians and their cronies who are afraid of what will be discovered. In Larry’s case, his sycophants didn’t mind a bit that $200,000,000 was squandered for so very little. They didn’t even mind when another $121,300,000 taxpayer dollars were called in from state coffers to run the i-Shuttle fiasco of empty buses running between John Wayne Airport and the AmTrak terminal – for the next 30 years! But a scant, by Agranista standards, $1,000,000 which is exposing the ugly side of Agran politics, and possible illegal actions… that liberals are genuinely afraid of and simply cannot abide. How does Larry sleep at night with this embarrassment and the possibly of going to prison?]
January 7, 2016 at 2:34 pm
“The Larry-Go-Round”…what a crack up!