Larry Agran

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Larry Agran (born 2 February 1945 in Chicago) is a former mayor of Irvine, California, Orange County's noted planned city.

Agran graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1966. He served as Legal Counsel to the California State Senate Committee on Health and Welfare, and taught legislation and public policy at the UCLA School of Law and the University of California, Irvine Graduate School of Management.

Between 1979 and 1990 he served on the city council, including 6 years as Mayor (Irvine employs a council-manager government).

In 1992, Agran unsuccessfully sought the Democratic Party nomination for President. Agran was generally ignored by by the media during his candidacy, a topic heavily covered in the 1995 documentary "Spin." The media did not report his polling numbers even as he met or exceeded the support of other candidates. Party officials excluded him from most debates on various grounds, even having him arrested when he interrupted to ask to participate. Even when he managed to join the other candidate in a forum, his ideas went unreported. He performed poorly in the New Hampshire primary, but did pick up modest support in later primaries as a protest candidate with appeal to those unhappy with the other candidates.

In 1998, Agran re-entered public service as an Irvine City Council member. Agran was elected to serve as mayor once more on November 7, 2000, and was re-elected on November 5, 2002. The current mayor of Irvine is Beth Krom. Agran continues to serve on Irvine's City Council and exercise considerable influence over civic matters.