Wednesday, December 01, 2010

Saved. Not Paved.

Yesterday, our pal Mike Boeck attended the ceremony at which "Irvine Company CEO Donald Bren [shown above] officially signed over 20,000 acres (31.25 square miles!) of Irvine Ranch land to the people of Orange County. ...It was a beautiful day, just about perfect weather."
The land was given to OC Parks (still known to many as Orange County Harbors Beaches & Parks). Mike also took the photos you see in today's post. In the image above, County Supervisor Bill Campbell signs the document, accepting the land while Donald Bren, OC Parks Director Mark Denny and Supervisors Nelson, Bates, Moorlach and Nguyen look on. In the image below, Bren addresses the crowd.
Normally, I don't post about news events on this blog. But this transfer A) Was clearly an important moment in Orange County history, and B) Includes many historic sites on the land in question.
There's much more coverage of this event, the transfer, and its significance in an article in today's Register.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oooh, GREAT photos!! lol

Chris Jepsen said...

Yes, well,... A photographer can only do so much with grip-and-grin events like this.

Anonymous said...

I mean it, Chris, absolutely stunning.

Mike

Major Pepperidge said...

WOW, that is FANTASTIC news. Hard to believe, when you consider the monetary value of that land; but I'm so happy to know that it will be preserved.