3 Irvine city officials honor Planned Parenthood after chamber rescinds award
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The Greater Irvine Chamber of Commerce was all set in January to recognize organizations, businesses and individuals whose innovative work makes a meaningful difference in healthcare and patient outcomes, when a mysterious last-minute edit to the event’s program was made.
One of the recipients due to be honored — Planned Parenthood of Orange and San Bernardino Counties — was quietly removed from all public mention associated with the Jan. 16 ceremony.
Irene Salazar, senior vice president of community education and outreach for the Orange-based nonprofit, said members of her team were “devastated” to hear the news on the day of the event.
“At first I was a little bit shocked. We thought maybe it was a safety issue,” she said of the organization whose Costa Mesa health center was the scene of a 2022 firebombing attempt that spurred the need for a security presence at public occasions.
“Then we found out it was something completely different.”
Held at the Hilton Irvine, the chamber’s Excellence in Healthcare and Innovation award had intended to pay tribute to Planned Parenthood’s “Equal Voices” and Male Involvement programs — two initiatives that provide education, support and a forum for students with intellectual disabilities and young men in the justice system, respectively.
Instead, officials were told by the Irvine chamber’s chief executive Dave Coffaro their removal from the night’s program was “a business decision,” though no additional information was provided. They were offered the chance to receive the award in private, so long as they did not post about it in social media or share the news publicly. They declined.
Representatives of the Greater Irvine Chamber of Commerce, including Coffaro, did not respond to requests for comment on the matter.
Sadaf Rahmani, who oversees public affairs for PPOSBC, said some wondered at the timing of the chamber’s decision, just days before Donald Trump’s second presidential inauguration and amid increasing rhetoric about the dismantling of educational programs aligned with diversity, equity and inclusion standards.
“Being Planned Parenthood, it’s easy to see what they may have meant by ‘business decision,’ especially given the environment we’re in right now with the current administration,” Rahmani said. “So, we were disappointed but not necessarily surprised by this.”
Still, the snubbing was unsettling given that, in June 2022, the Irvine City Council passed a resolution formally opposing the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe vs. Wade and encouraging residents to “continue to support efforts to protect reproductive freedom, through education and advocacy.”
The declaration was proposed by then-Mayor Farrah Khan and adopted on a 3-2 vote, with former Councilman Anthony Kuo and current Councilman Mark Carroll opposed.
The offer of a reward of up to $25,000 in the March 2022 Molotov cocktail attack on the healthcare facility on Nutmeg Place led to Wednesday morning’s arrest of two local men.
Now, a contingent of relatively new Irvine City Council members have stepped up to show their support for Planned Parenthood’s programs and impact on the local community — and to deliver the recognition they say the group and its staff deserve.
During an April 7 summit hosted by the Public School Defenders Hub, an initiative of the Anaheim-based nonprofit Contemporary Policy Institute, Irvine council members Kathleen Treseder, Melinda Liu and William Go presented a certificate of recognition as a gesture of appreciation for Planned Parenthood’s local outreach programs.
Liu, who attended the Greater Irvine Chamber of Commerce award ceremony in January, initially had no idea of the rescinded award and was stunned to hear from others what had happened.
“I reached out to our government relations person and tried to see if there was anything we could do to give them the proper recognition,” she said. “I find their services invaluable, as far as what they’ve done [to assist] our low-income population and what they’ve done to educate young men and women. That’s a very indispensable part of what they do.”
Treseder said she reached out to Irvine Mayor Larry Agran, who had backed the 2022 council resolution supporting reproductive freedom, to see whether officials might present some formal recognition to Planned Parenthood in a council meeting presentation, but he wasn’t interested.
So, she teamed up with Liu and Go, and the trio was made aware of the April 7 summit in their communications with the nonprofit.
“I think Planned Parenthood deserves all the recognition in the world,” Treseder said Tuesday. “They’re working with folks who might not otherwise be able to get healthcare. In addition, I’m really relying on them to beat the drum for reproductive freedom for our young women. [They’re] on the front lines and they don’t back down — we need them.”
Rahmani said she and her colleagues are grateful to the Irvine City Council members for rectifying the situation.
“We’re certainly not going to be silenced, whether it’s providing care in health centers or the education team working out in the community,” she added. “We’re always going to be loud and proud of the service we provide and the work that we do.”
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