Yesterday I penned a column on the FlashReport, concerned about a proposal coming before the Irvine city council that would have raised most of the fees charged by the city for everything you can imagine. The staff report estimated the annual increase in fee revenues for approving these increases to be well north of a million bucks a year.
I am very pleased to report that tonight the new Republican majority in the city not only rejected the proposal to raise all of these fees (after the two Democrats on the Council, Beth Krom and Larry Agran, spoke in support of hiking them), but on a substitute motion from Councilmember Christina Shea and supported by her colleagues Mayor Steven Choi and Councilmember Jeff Lalloway, all of the fee increases were defeated, and in some cases fee reductions were made.
This is a sharp contrast to the tax and spend mentality that dominated the Irvine Council for a full decade. Congratulations to the Republican Majority in Irvine, and to everyone who played a role in bringing this reality to fruition.