SPECIAL INTEREST MONEY SUPPORTING MEASURE K

GUEST COLUMNIST

Former Mayor Carolyn Cavecche

If you are a City of Orange resident and use social media, most likely you have seen the slick, expensive ads running in support of Measure K.  Our small team of community members focused on making sure Measure K fails has been waiting for these to hit. Earlier in the month, the Mobile Home Park Owners Association spent $5,000 to run a poll to try and figure out how to convince voters this terrible ballot measure is a good thing.  Then two different people contacted me about an outside group fishing around Orange for a political committee to run $200,000 through to try and get Measure K passed. So, we knew it was coming.

Apparently, no one in Orange was interested in taking their money to support such a destructive measure, so they went to Sacramento and found California Leadership Today. They are a Sacramento based special interest political action committee that, according to the Secretary of State website, spent at least part of 2025 serving as a campaign account to try and elect a candidate to the Irvine City Council.  Orange’s best interests at heart? Local Control? I don’t think so.

Why do mobile home park owners and other development groups care about Measure K?  Hidden in the small print in the charter are a few short sentences that state that no rent control will be allowed in the City of Orange.  And that equals big bucks to owners. They need to make sure that rents can go as high as possible.  And they are willing to spend and say whatever it will take to get your vote, that’s what special interest groups do.

We have all been watching what is happening in our neighborhoods. Larger, denser, higher developments, retail properties looking to become housing sites, the demise of our local mall for possibly even more high-density housing, even a 24/7 trucking facility in one neighborhood, the list goes on.    And now the development industry is dropping an astronomical amount of money to pass this term limit extension for the current city council. A council that if Measure K passes will have the ability to sit on the dais until 2040 and beyond.  They get their higher rents and their council majority.  It’s a win-win for them and a lose-lose for us.

Sacramento’s California Leadership Today’s high-priced commercials paint an inspiring narrative that completely contradicts realty; more local control, safer streets, stronger accountability, balanced budgets, independent audits, protecting parks, lifetime term limits.  But here the thing, we do not need to become a charter city to accomplish any of this.  This is all possible as the general law city Orange has been for over 100 years.  In fact, it’s what I expected my current council to have been doing all along. We just need a city council who will work together to do it. 

We are expecting more pro Measure K propaganda to hit.  In your mailbox, on your social media feed, calls to your house. $200,000 can buy an awful lot.  My hope is that they have underestimated the Orange community. That we hold firm in the onslaught of this much outside money and put our community first.  Please, Vote No on Measure K.

Former Mayor Carolyn Cavecche