Melinda Liu
Candidate for City Council Member, Irvine, District 1 · City of Irvine Councilmember/Attorney
Melinda Liu is a Northwood resident with multigenerational family ties to Irvine. Born in Taipei, Taiwan, she immigrated to Los Angeles as a teenager. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from UC Berkeley and a Juris Doctor from Southwestern University School of Law, and is a licensed California attorney, a licensed real estate broker, and a certified mediator. Her legal career has focused on serving immigrant communities and small businesses, including work in immigration law, business transactions, litigation, and small-business regulation through the Small Business Administration; she now operates a solo estate-planning practice. She has volunteered extensively, serving as President of the Irvine Chinese School Parent Teacher Organization, as a board member of Northwood High School's Athletic Booster Club and PTSA, and as a volunteer mediator at Orange County Superior Court. A single mother of three adult children who also cares for her elderly immigrant parents, she describes navigating the challenges of the 'sandwich generation.' She was elected to the Irvine City Council in the November 2024 election, becoming the first Taiwan-born, Mandarin-fluent Chinese-American woman elected to the council.
Positions in brief
Liu's council work centers on public safety and fire prevention, expanding multimodal transportation, and increasing housing affordability so people who work in Irvine can also live there.
Liu has pursued a public-safety agenda spanning fire prevention, traffic safety and crime reduction, including introducing an ordinance addressing sober living and group homes, hosting fire-safety town halls, and supporting updated fire severity zone maps; she has pointed to Irvine's low crime rate relative to its size as evidence her approach is working. On transportation, she has pushed to reduce car dependency by expanding the Irvine Connect bus system, installing Leading Pedestrian Intervals at high-traffic intersections, and supporting bicycle infrastructure. On housing, she has backed transit-oriented, high-density development near job centers to give young professionals and middle-class workers more options to live in Irvine, funded the One Irvine affordable-housing program ($1.5 million) and the Irvine CARES rental-assistance program ($500,000), and serves as Vice Chair of the Orange County Housing Finance Trust. She has also supported business license fee exemptions for small businesses and retail expansion at the Great Park.
On the issues
Supports reducing car dependency through expanded multimodal transit.
Source →Prioritizes fire prevention, traffic safety, and crime reduction.
“We are the safest city for a city of this size according to FBI data.”
Source →Supports increasing housing affordability so residents across income levels can live, work, and play in Irvine.
“live, work, and play in Irvine”
Source →Supports small-business relief and retail growth.
Source →
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