Larry Agran to Tax Payers:, "If You Want to Move to Mississippi, Alabama or Texas..."

       

     
Larry "Great Park" Agran



                                                                                 



In Irvine, California, Larry Agran is The Man to See. Currently, a city councilman, he is running for mayor (again). Under the revolving door system in Irvine, they sort of take turns being mayor, city councilperson, or what have you while one of them runs for Congress. The current mayor, Sukhee Kang, is running for Congress. Agran is also the driving force behind Irvine's "Great Park", the former El Toro Marine Base, which is still a giant gopher patch with a big orange hot air balloon that takes thrill seekers about 50 feet into the air for about 5 minutes.

"Ah wunnerful, ah wunnerful, ah."

Anyway, Agran was present (as was I) at a town hall yesterday at the Islamic Center of Irvine. The event had absolutely nothing to do with religion even though it was sponsored by the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC). The topic was a couple of ballot measures facing voters in California this November. At issue were Proposition 30, Governor "Run Down" Jerry Brown's scheme to raise certain taxes to pay for education, a competing Proposition 38 (only one of which can pass) and Irvine Measure BB, which would take Irvine's budget surplus and use it to put it into education.  This was actually drafted by Agran himself. (I told you he was The Man to See in Irvine.) The speakers consisted of a local judge, a couple of PTA ladies, a teacher from San Juan Capistrano, and Boss Agran himself.

I won't bore you readers with the arguments advanced by the speakers. Let's just say all the speakers (and MPAC) favor more money going into education. Thus, the speaker(s) spoke in favor of Prop 30 or Prop 38 and Agran spoke in favor of Measure BB for Irvine. None of the speakers took the position that Californians pay enough taxes already. After all, it's For the Children, you know.


"Ah wunnerful, ah wunnerful, ah."

Nevertheless, during the Q and A, your intrepid reporter got in this question to the panel:

"What are you going to do when all the tax-payers and business owners leave the state, which they are already doing due to the over-taxation and over-regulation. Where are you going to get your tax money then?"

What I got from several of the panelists was a series of non-answers that talked about a safe locked box, transparency, California being ranked 47th in education, taxing people who make more than $250,000, and our children deserving it.

But it was Agran's response that needs to be repeated here. Referring dismissively to anti-tax groups, he said that if some people didn't want to pay more in taxes, they could move to Mississippi, Alabama or Texas.

I wasn't recording, so that may not be a word-for-word quote, but that is as close as I can get. In other words, it is closer to a direct quote than a paraphrase. And I am not taking him out of context.

Afterward, a few people told me I asked a good question. One of them was a lady named Margaret Brown, who is running for the Irvine School Board. She told me she is against any new taxes. If you live in Irvine, you might want to check her out.

www.brownforschoolboard.com

As for Larry Agran, I would suggest that he use all that money he has hidden away for his non-existent Great Park and use it to fund education.