At the June 14, 2023 Irvine City Council meeting, Mayor Farrah Khan presented a construction deal that was described as having been advanced with limited public disclosure. This agreement, which involves sole-source, no-bid, multi-year contracts covering all construction labor, is anticipated to prevent 80% of Irvine’s construction workers from participating in city construction projects.
A central question raised during the meeting was whether this agreement must return to the Irvine City Council for a final vote. While city staff and four Democrat members of the City Council appeared to believe that a final vote is not required for the project labor agreement (PLA), former Attorney General Kamala Harris's prior opinion on similar matters suggests otherwise.
In her role as Attorney General, Kamala Harris issued Opinion No. 14-302 on September 21, 2015. This opinion clarified that the labor negotiations exception to the Ralph M. Brown Act’s open-meeting requirements does not permit a community college district’s governing board to discuss project labor agreements in closed session. This is due to the fact that the contractors and laborers covered by such agreements are not considered district employees. Harris's opinion implies that without a final public vote, such agreements would have been discussed without public scrutiny.
This Attorney General opinion was requested by current Orange County Supervisor Don Wagner when he served as an Assemblyman. The Associated Builders and Contractors, a non-union construction association, had prompted Assemblyman Wagner to seek this ruling. Their request followed a local community college’s attempt to negotiate a project labor agreement related to a $198 million construction bond. The subsequent ruling mandated that community college hold a public vote on the final deal.
An October 1, 2015 article in the Orange County Register, co-authored by Phillip Yarbrough and Don Wagner, further reinforced Attorney General Harris's opinion. The article noted that project labor agreements often restrict government construction contracts, obliging contractors to subject their employees to union controls and potentially pay union dues. It further stated that such provisions grant unions exclusive hiring authority. The authors suggested that firms providing union-only services, and their affiliates, have historically made significant political donations to officials who approve such agreements.
In light of this historical precedent, an appeal has been made for the City of Irvine to act transparently and conduct a final public vote on this specific agreement. The public, it is noted, deserves a clear understanding of the process through which this deal, which involves sole-source, no-bid, multi-year contracts for all construction labor, became city policy, and to know how major union leaders, identified as Mayor Khan’s political donors, were involved.
