Good ol' Larry Agran has been part of progressive Irvine politics for more than 40 years. With the exception of a hiatus during the 90s, he's been either mayor or a city council member practically the entire time. This year, at age 77, he's running for city council yet again. Naturally I voted for him.
Now get out there and vote if you haven't already! Democracy may or may not depend on it, but a non-lunatic government sure does.
This reminds me of a local man here in town. He went just about every HS athletic event here in town. He walked everywhere or took the bus. I spoke to him hesitantly at first at a HS volleyball game when my daughter was in HS. He was very polite, and kind. Found out years later he was abused as a child to the point it disabled him.
He was a constant presence at our library. He actually studied our city charter and knew all the functions of our city government and all the departments within. He actually caught our city government trying to exceed their statutory authority and spoke up at a city council meeting. Everyone laughed or smirked after he spoke except for 1 person and THAT person was the city attorney. After a short break council re-adjourned and reversed course saying the city attorneyconfirmed it was outside the city's authority to do what they proposed. The man ran for mayor in the next election, and finished a respectable 3rd place finish with close to 8,000 votes.
He is quite a guy, and even after 12 years he remembered my name, my daughters name, "sport of choice" and he could recite MLB baseball stats off the top of his head for many teams.
I kinda wish he had won his election. I have seen much worse in some of our candidates since that time long ago.
I think every town or city has a person like this.
Ah, the campaign signs! Back in the day when they were actually made of wood and/or cardboard, a friend of mine, a local politico, gathered enough signs after the election was over that he built a doghouse for his very large dog.
Now, the signs are corrugated plastic, or even plastic sleeves over a wire frame. Not as good for re-use. And I've noticed a trend: Republican candidates don't seem to want to identify which party they're with.
Six years ago the signs were blue and red. Two years ago all the signs were blue, Republican as well as Democrat. This year the Republican color is ... green?