On Tuesday, July 13, the Irvine City Council voted unanimously to adopt a motion that will explore renaming the Orange County Great Park to the Irvine Great Park. While the agenda item has the full support of the council, the cost associated with renaming the Great Park is still unknown.

The name change consideration was placed on the agenda at the request of Irvine Councilmember Mike Carroll and supported by Irvine Mayor Farrah Khan.

Agenda item 3.4 was met with little opposition from within the City Council, with the majority backing the move to drop the Orange County prefix within the Great Park’s namesake.

“My colleagues and I are working hard every day to build the Irvine brand, so when it comes to the Great Park, it’s clear the park is city of Irvine property, it’s paid for by city funds, we just want to have a robust discussion on what it should be called,” Khan said. “We are under the impression that we would have this discussion here, and move on to the Great Park Board for final discussion.”

While there was no presentation associated with agenda item 3.4, the Request to Change the name of the Orange County Great Park to the Irvine Great Park, William M. Marticorena, legal counsel for the city of Irvine, explained that the Irvine City Council had the ability to change the name of the Great Park, if it wished. However, Marticorena added that while he could not give an official recommendation, he advised that if the council decided to take action on the name change matter, there were “a number of documents” – from marketing to legal – in which the name change would need to be reflected.

“The City Council can actually take action tonight, to change the name, if that’s your desire; as part of the motion, we would recommend that you direct staff to come back with an implementation plan because there will be a number of documents that will need to be amended,” Marticorena explained. “If nothing else, the articles of incorporation will likely need to be amended, the bylaws will likely need to be amended – there will also likely be expenditures, rebranding, marketing expenditures that will need to go the Great Park Board.”

Speaking directly to the cost associated with the documentation, Joel Belding, Deputy Director of Planning and Development for the Orange County Great Park, presented the single slide during the discussion, which listed the physical locations and the cost associated with the efforts to make the changes by staff, in which the Great Park name change would need to be enacted.

Specifically, Belding’s slide showed the city staff time associated with updating the park’s name, which includes municipal code amendment, zoning ordinance amendment, city website updates, park signage updates – with added cost for fabrications – along with any third-party websites that mention the Orange County Great Park.

“A lot of this can be done with staff time, going through, taking the existing documents, updating them,” Belding explained. “I don’t really have a ballpark sense on how many hours would be involved. The primary expenditure would relate to the physical modifications to the signs at the Great Park. We’ve installed those signs and they’re not easily taken apart and then reassembled.”

Belding added that some signs would need the help of a consultant for redesign, as they are more permanent fixtures that call out Orange County.

While there are yet to be official costs associated with this proposed name change, Carroll, who supported this agenda item, credited former Irvine Mayor Beth Krom’s legacy for dubbing Irvine the City of Innovation, adding that the name change would help Irvine stand out from under the shadows of UC Irvine, the Irvine Company and FivePoint.

“We have been through such growing pangs, but I think that some of us up here have the perspective that we really want to be looking toward the future – as I think former mayor Beth Krom led the charge to name the city, the City of Innovation,” Carroll said. “We’re a city that in many ways is led around by the nose by three institutions – UC Irvine, the Irvine Company and FivePoint – it’s time to flex our muscles as the city of Irvine.”

Irvine City Councilmember Larry Agran was the most hesitant to back the Great Park name change, adding that it might be a costly process for something that does not benefit the public.

“I have absolutely no doubt – I don’t care how many signs we change, how much we invest in it – I have absolutely no doubt that in a year or two, or three, after all those changes have been made, the public will simply be referring to the Great Park,” Agran said. “The great metropolitan parks that exist now are Central Park – everybody knows it’s in New York, Griffith Park – there’s no reference to Los Angeles – people understand that those places, those parks are identified by those cities.”

While Agenda Item 3.4 passed unanimously and will now be heard by the Great Park Board, which is made up of all five members of the sitting City Council, based on both public comments via Zoom and in person, Irvine residents are questioning the need of renaming the Great Park altogether.

Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer decided to call into the July 13 meeting via Zoom, while he was vacationing in Georgia. Spitzer said he agreed with Agran’s statements, emphasizing his disappointment in the City Council’s decision to rename the Great Park.

Spitzer has a personal history invested in the Orange County Great Park, considering he and Agran helped defeat plans for a major international airport project at El Toro Air Force Base in the mid-90s, during Spitzer’s campaign for a seat on the Orange County Board of Supervisors.

“I listened to Councilmember Agran’s comments, and I understand his reluctance and renaissance, and I share those concerns,” he said. “He and I were on the front lines of stopping an international airport, as early as 1996 and before – I ran for county supervisor in 1996, and I won that election because I was against an international airport at El Toro. … [H]e and I and others were all over the county making speeches, and we promised it would be an Orange County Great Park – that was a representation we made to get public support to defeat an international airport and make it a Great Park.”

Spitzer added that he takes personal responsibility for Irvine’s ability to acquire the land that is now the Orange County Great Park.

“As you may recall, when I was a county supervisor, I secured the third vote from then-Supervisor Kuo, to allow the city of Irvine to annex the property to your city, in order for you to develop that parcel and to stop an airport,” he said. “I did that because I trusted that your city would be good stewards of a Great Park, called the Orange County Great Park.”

Kevin Corrigan, a resident of Irvine, who said he was unsure if he supported this agenda item, reminded the City Council that residents recently paid more than $1 million for signage around the Great Park within the last five years.

“One of the things up there says ‘Park Signage Modifications.’ We paid for those park signages like three years ago – $1.4 million was spent to build that, and I think that would be an incredible misuse of our city’s resources to rename the park at this time,” Corrigan said. “Most of the signage already has Irvine’s logo, so it says ‘Orange County Great Park’ and underneath it says ‘City of Irvine’ and I think if we want to change it to “Great Park of Irvine” – it’s already pretty much like that.”

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