Steven Seokho Choi (born January 15, 1944) is a U.S. Republican Party politician from Orange County, California. He is now one of two Korean Americans serving on the Irvine City Council and the first Asian American to have been elected to a four-year term on the City council. Choi unsuccessfully campaigned for California State Assembly 70th district in 2010.
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Born in South Korea, Steven Choi earned his B.A. degree from Kyung Hee University in Seoul, South Korea. He came to the United States from South Korea as a Peace Corps language instructor for the State Department in August 1968. He then continued his post-graduate education, earning his master's degree in Library Science from Louisiana State University, and his Ph.D. in Library and Information Science at the University of Pittsburgh.
He has taught at several universities and colleges including USC, UCI, California State University, Los Angeles, Henderson State University in Arkansas, Saddleback College, and most recently, Coastline Community College. He founded and serves as Director of Dr. Choi's Academy. Steven Choi had won many awards.
Choi was elected to the Irvine Unified School District school board on November 3, 1998 and reelected on November 5, 2002. He was elected to the Irvine City Council on November 2, 2004, becoming the first Asian American elected to a four-year term on the council. He and Sukhee Kang (elected to a two-year term on the same day) became the first two Asian Americans elected to the Irvine City Council.
Despite Irvine's majority Republican registration, the Irvine City Council has 3 Democrats (Kang, Larry Agran, and Mayor Beth Krom) and 2 Republicans (Choi and Christina Shea). Although Choi is in the conservative council minority, he has been able to promote programs he supports and has stopped policies he opposed from being enacted. During the course of new sister city negotiations, he successfully opposed the One-China principle demanded by Shanghai's Xuhui government in the People's Republic of China, which would have required Irvine to abandon its existing long-term sister city relationship with Taoyuan, Taiwan.
Choi serves as Chairman of the Orange County Public Library Advisory Board, which consists of Mayors and Council members from 27 Orange County cities, and is also Chairman of the Irvine Library Advisory Committee. He serves on the Orange County Great Park Corporation Board, the Irvine Redevelopment Agency, the Orange County Sanitation District Board and other countywide committees. His vision is to build a large Orange County/City Metropolitan Library at the Great Park.
In addition, Choi is a member of the Concordia University President's Advisory Council and is Irvine’s representative to Growth Management Areas 4 and 9 and the Newport Bay Watershed Executive Committee. He formerly represented the 71st Assembly District on the Orange County Republican Party Central Committee. On June 3, 2008, he became the only incumbent to not be re-elected to the Orange County Republican Party Central Committee, coming in seventh with only 6.5% of the available vote. He is also a member of the Local Elected Officials Association and the 400 Club.
With his wife, Janie, and their two children, Choi has lived in Irvine since 1993 and in Mission Viejo from 1981-1993. Both of their children attended public schools in the Irvine Unified School District. Daniel, a recent graduate of Stanford University, is currently a medical student at the UC San Diego School of Medicine. Michelle did her undergraduate studies at UC San Diego, and is currently a law student at the University of Michigan Law School.
On September 19, 2008 Steven Choi was the subject of a controversy based on his highlighting opponent Todd Gallinger's extensive legal work with the Council for American Islamic Relations CAIR. Choi called CAIR "a dangerous Islamic organization."
CAIR and its chairman emeritus, Omar Ahmad, were named un-indicted co-conspirators in the November 2009 conviction of the Holy Land Foundation. CAIR's current national executive director, Nihad Awad, was revealed on government wiretaps as having been active participants in early Hamas-related organizational meetings in the United States. During testimony, FBI agent Lara Burns described CAIR as a front organization. [3] All five that were indicted were subsequently convicted. [1]
Weeks after the Choi made his comment Gallinger received a death threat stating, "I want to cut off your head just like all the other Muslims deserve." When asked regarding his statement which may have fueled the incident, Choi stated, "It's a ridiculous question...Am I responsible for someone else making a threat to him? No. This is not my intent at all."[2]