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A candidate for Irvine City Council’s special election – former Councilwoman Tammy Kim – is facing a lawsuit accusing her of lying about living in the district she’s eying to represent.
It comes as she’s slated to go to court Thursday, denying the allegations she lives outside of the city’s 5th District.
While the other three candidates have largely flown under the radar so far, Kim’s candidacy is already facing a lawsuit from former mayoral candidate Ron Scolesdang, who’s suing both Kim and Irvine’s city clerk – alleging Kim lives in a different part of the city and is ineligible to run.
To read a copy of the suit, click here.
Scolesdang hired a law firm who then hired a private investigator to follow Kim and see if she lived at her address in District 5.
In a letter posted on the city’s website, the investigator said he saw her repeatedly spending more time at her home in District 3, while Scolesdang’s lawyer claimed she was attempting residency fraud just to run in the race.
Kim denied the allegations in an interview this week, saying while she did still own a condo in District 3 she spent most of her time living in District 5 at a rented apartment that she got after her condo was broken into.
“Last year I had security concerns around the international conflict,” Kim said, referring to the council’s multiple discussions about whether to take a stance on the Gaza war. “That was the impetus, having zero to do with the election itself.”
[Read: Irvine Officials Won’t Formally Weigh in on Palestine and Israel]
She also said she doesn’t plan on selling her condo in District 3.
“In this housing crisis, where’s my son going to live? Maybe potentially my future grandchildren,” Kim said. “I’m not ashamed of being a homeowner in the city of Irvine.”
City Manager Oliver Chi confirmed on Tuesday that Kim is still set to go on the ballot, and there’s a hearing scheduled for the court case on Thursday.
Kim sat on the council for four years, but left at the end of 2024 after losing the mayoral race to Agran and has been endorsed by the county Democratic Party.
Who Else is Running for the Seat?
Whoever wins the Fifth District could decide the balance of power on a city council whose members have repeatedly deadlocked in 3-3 votes in its first meetings of the year.
The 5th District seat opened up after Mayor Larry Agran won that seat in the 2024 election, vacating his at-large seat Under the city’s rules, the two years left on the seat have to be filled via a special election, and ballots go out starting March 17.
It’s the first time that neighborhoods at the heart of the city like Woodbridge, Rancho San Joaquin and University Park will vote for their own representative under the city’s push to district elections, which also expanded the city council from five to seven members.
In the past, the city voted under at-large voting, where every resident gets to vote for city council members. But they’re currently transitioning to district voting, where different parts of the city each get to pick a single representative from their own neighborhood.
Voters will have four candidates to choose from: Kim, former Councilman Anthony Kuo, Woodbridge HOA Board Member Dana Cornelius and PR consultant Betty Martinez Franco.
Kim is joined in the race by Kuo, who sat on the council from 2018-2022, when he lost reelection to Agran and Councilwoman Kathleen Treseder.
In his candidate statement, Kuo vowed to work with Agran to pull the city out of the OC Power Authority and continue expanding the Great Park, including the promise of a veterans cemetery despite the project having shifted to Gypsum Canyon in Anaheim.
[Read: OC Veterans Cemetery Picks Up Steam Following Anaheim Approval]
While he hasn’t disclosed any fundraising yet, a new political action committee dubbed “California Leadership Today supporting Anthony Kuo for Irvine City Council 2025,” received nearly $6,000 from an organization dubbed Friends of the Great Park.
It’s unclear exactly who funds that group from recent disclosures.
Cornelius doesn’t have a campaign website, but in her candidate statement vowed to support first responders, support small businesses and build more archways.
On her website, Martinez-Franco pledged to increase housing affordability, support small business and address traffic congestion.
Martinez-Franco currently runs her own PR consulting business, but previously worked as a senior account executive at FSB Public Affairs, a now decommissioned lobbying firm run by Jeff Flint.
Flint was detailed in an Anaheim commissioned independent corruption report in 2023 for failing to disclose his work lobbying alongside former Anaheim Chamber of Commerce CEO Todd Ament – who is at the center of the recent corruption scandal.
Investigators also alleged Ament and Flint orchestrated a secret retreat with several elected officials in Anaheim where they discussed how to withhold tens of millions of dollars from the city’s discretionary pot of money in the future.
Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org.
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