The Orange County Professional Firefighters Association (OCPFA), IAFF Local 3631, has added its name to Councilmember Betty Martinez Franco’s endorsement list for the November 3, 2026 general election in Irvine’s District 5.

It is a name that should catch every District 5 voter’s attention, and not because firefighters are a beloved institution. It’s because this union has a well-documented recent history of pouring outsized money into Irvine elections on behalf of officials who sit in judgment of its own contracts, and the fallout from its last big bet in this city is still working its way through the courts.

A pattern, not a one-off

In 2024, OCPFA and its affiliated PAC made Irvine political history for the wrong reasons. The union funneled more than $300,000 into Tammy Kim’s mayoral campaign, including a single $150,000 contribution to an anti-recall committee, nearly 250 times Irvine’s $620-per-donor contribution limit, according to reporting by Irvine Community News & Views and Voice of OC. Kim was, at the time, the city’s own paid representative on the Orange County Fire Authority board, the body that oversees the very firefighters whose union was bankrolling her campaign.

The bet did not pay off. Kim lost the mayor’s race. The state’s Fair Political Practices Commission opened a formal investigation into Kim’s fundraising after a complaint from resident Alan Meyerson. In May 2025, the Orange County District Attorney’s office charged Kim with 10 felony counts and one misdemeanor, including perjury, filing a false document, and voter registration fraud, for allegedly lying about where she lived in order to run in District 5 and vote in its 2024 election. She faces up to nearly 11 years in prison and, if convicted of the felony perjury count, a permanent bar from public office.

Chris Hamm’s union is back at the table

Chris Hamm remains president of the firefighters’ union today, and the same organization he leads has now formally endorsed Betty Martinez Franco, according to her own campaign website. Irvine’s financial arrangement with OCFA is still lopsided: residents pay roughly $140 million a year and receive only about $60 million in services back, per Mayor Farrah Khan’s remarks at an August 2024 council meeting.

What we will be watching

We will be tracking OCPFA’s spending disclosures, any independent expenditure filings, and Martinez Franco’s votes on fire authority matters throughout this campaign, and we will report on what we find.