Steven Choi

Steven Seokho Choi (born January 15 1944) is a U.S. Republican Party politician from California. He is one of two Korean Americans on the Irvine City Council and the first Asian American to have been elected to a four-year term on the council.__NOTOC__

Education and teaching career

Born in South Korea, Steven Choi earned his B.A. degree from Kyung Hee University in Seoul, South Korea. Choi 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.

Political career

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 policy 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 Councilmembers 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.

Family

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 is an undergraduate majoring in Sociology at UC San Diego.

Controversy

On September 19, 2008 Steven Choi was the subject of heightened controversy based upon his attempt to slight opponent Todd Gallinger due to the latter's religious affiliation. Regarding Gallinger's association with Civil Rights group CAIR, Choi called it "a dangerous Islamic organization", a claim which neither the FBI, nor the Department of Homeland Security, nor any other Investigative division of the U.S. government considers credible. Weeks after the allegation 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." [http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-threat10-2008oct10,0,1710757.story]

External links

* [http://www.stevenchoi.org Steven Choi] - Official campaign web site
* [http://www.ci.irvine.ca.us/council/bios/dr_steven_choi.asp City of Irvine] - Official government biography
* [http://www.drchoisacademy.com Dr. Choi's Academy] - Official business site