Like any property owner, the Anaheim taxpayer must know the value of a given property before handing it over in what is something of a fair deal. If you are new to the negotiations between the City of Anaheim and Angels team owner Arte Moreno, it is really that simple: bargained-for-exchange. Last year, the Anaheim City Council, unexpectedly and with very little public notice, voted to hand-over the 155 acres of land surrounding Angels Stadium to Moreno. Voting no, Mayor Tom Tait has been the lone dissenter at City Hall. Putting the breaks on Moreno’s sweet-heart deal, the Mayor called for an appraisal of said 155 acres so as to give taxpayers an idea of what Moreno stands to gain at their expense.
Arte Moreno with my boy
The Council Majority voted to give Moreno the rights to develop the 155 acres for a mere $66. Thanks to the Mayor’s vigilance, we now know for certain that the Majority’s deal, if finalized, would constitute an epic transfer of wealth from Anaheim taxpayers to billionaire Moreno. Released earlier this month, the Mayor was completely vindicated by the professional appraisal. The land is worth $325 million. The appraiser also gave a lower figure, $225 million, if the Angels stay. While this is interesting, it is unrelated to the cash-value of Moreno’s government hand-out.
Already an unprecedented fraud on present and future taxpayers, the Council Majority is forcing Anaheim to surrender another invaluable asset to Moreno: the inclusion of “Anaheim” in the team’s name. Currently the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, the much litigated name is, at best, in technical compliance with the current lease. Under the new lease, the Majority opts for the complete deletion of “Anaheim” from the team’s name.
Previously the California Angels, the team first took to the field as the Anaheim Angels in 1997. A year prior, the city and team entered into the current lease, which requires “Anaheim”. In 2005, the city claimed to be shocked when Moreno replaced “Anaheim” with “Los Angeles”. In the resulting lawsuit, Anaheim described how Moreno violated the 1996 lease agreement when he began removing the word “Anaheim” from team merchandise and advertising as early as 2003.
Rejecting “of Anaheim”, the city claimed Moreno violated the spirit of the 1996 lease agreement with the name change. The city maintained that Moreno’s bad faith cost taxpayers in Anaheim at least $100 million in lost publicity and tourism. It would have never agreed to the inclusion of “Los Angeles”, the city argued, because to get “Anaheim” in the team’s name, the city took over the team’s responsibility to pay for stadium renovations. Nevertheless, a jury sided with Moreno finding the current name satisfies the terms of the 1996 lease. As many predicted, however, the media and general public have generally dropped “of Anaheim” and refer to the team as simply the Los Angeles Angels.
$100 million in lost publicity and tourism does not do justice to the hit the city suffered when it lost the Anaheim Angels. While hard to quantify, having the Anaheim Angels encourages residents to identify with the city of Anaheim. With civic identity comes civic participation; and in a fast-growing city like Anaheim, civic pride, or lack thereof, will go a long way in determining our future prospects. Adding the naming rights to the value of the property, the Council Majority voted to give Moreno a government hand-out worth, at a minimum, $425,000,000.
To justify what is basically grand theft, the Council Majority has put forth alternate and contradictory explanations. First, they maintain that the deal, called a memorandum of understanding (MOU), is not final but just a framework. They leave to the imagination, however, how said framework would differ in the final lease. At the same time, the Majority argues that the new lease is a good deal for the city, it is just too complex for the public to be able to comprehend its many benefits. At one point, the Majority claimed that the give-away is warranted because Moreno agreed to take over the duty to pay for stadium renovations. However, that burden already belonged to the team before the city assumed the responsibly in exchange for the Angels’ naming rights, a benefit promised but never realized. In any event, the estimated $150 million in renovation costs comes nowhere near covering the value of the land. Playing with the numbers can’t hide the ugly reality: the taxpayer is losing hundreds of millions of dollars, while Arte Moreno is being given access to wind-fall profits.
Ultimately, the Council Majority is relying on fear to justify what is nothing more than corporate welfare. The Majority is constantly suggesting that the new lease is needed to keep the Angels in Anaheim. On its face, this notion is nuts because it is nearly impossible to imagine how the Angels could move before the opt-out provision in the current lease becomes effective in 2016. [Correction: Alongside the MOU, the Majority voted to substantially alter the lease by extending the opt-out option to 2019, thus giving Moreno three additional years to relocate.] It is true that Moreno has met with Tustin and Irvine about a move, but the sole intent behind the meetings was to put pressure on Anaheim’s leaders and manipulate Anaheim’s public. Moreno, or the taxpayer for that matter, is not going to pay hundreds of millions dollars to build a stadium [in the next couple years] down the road so the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim can be the Los Angeles Angels of Tustin.
The assertion that the city must accept such grossly unfair terms to keep the Angels in Anaheim is nothing less than an obscene lie. Far from securing the team’s permanent presence, the Majority’s deal accomplishes the exact opposite. By extending the opt-out provision in the current lease from 2016 to 2019, the Council Majority is providing Moreno with what they claim he already possessed: time to find a credible opportunity to leave Anaheim.
Moreover, by completely removing “Anaheim” from the team’s name, Moreno and the Majority are putting further distance between the Angels and their fan base in Orange County. It is that fan base, or media market, the really keeps the Angels from leaving town. If Moreno succeeds in his long-term project to supplant the Angels’ fan base with Los Angelenos, nothing will prevent him from ditching OC for L.A. in the future, not even a government hand-out worth nearly half a billion dollars. Before the city even considers giving Moreno a better deal with the Anaheim taxpayer, it is time to make things right and demand a return of the “Anaheim”Angels. The Council Majority is just that, a majority. As such, it falls on the public to stop this deal from becoming final. Now that negotiations have stalled, it is time to hear from Anaheim taxpayers.
Join the grassroots effort to bring OC back to the Angels.
It’s now 2019, not 2016, given the three-year extension to the opt-out period granted unilaterally to the Anaheim City Council on Sept. 3, 2013 — at the urging of “their” negotiator Charles Black based on the bogus CS&L report that Black had probably brokered.
wow… the extension was originally reported as part of the new lease framework.
No, it was a separate motion. You had approval of the two MOUs, and then you had the 3-year opt-out extension. In our Brown Act lawsuit, CATER didn’t challenge the opt-out extension, but only because it involved having to prove the absence of any party’s reliance on it. It was one of the most amazingly stupid approached to negotiation I’ve ever seen, akin to a wrestler who has his opponent on the mat going and getting a folding chair and hitting himself over the head with it. But it makes sense if you hypothesize that Charles Black’s real interests were in supporting the Angels rather than the City — which makes one wonder how he got hired as outside City Staff in the first place. (Maybe current City Manager Paul Emery can explain it.) Black apparently quit in March.
Mr. Black… he is something else that Mr. Black.
Question: I thought the opt-out clause allowed Moreno to leave before 2016 not after, but I did some research this time around and I found some sources saying it means the opposite: He cant leave before 2016. You say?
Also, just say no to letting Curt Pringle or Arte Moreno draft contracts.
The opt-out clause would have allowed Moreno to end the contract early move the team out of Anaheim without cause in 2016. (I think that it was at the end of the season, but I could be remembering that detail incorrectly.)
As I recall — and this would be in the video, and perhaps earlier stories, which I’m not reviewing — Moreno had to elect to exercise the option a year or so prior to that, so essentially the end of the 2015 season. The extension granted, apparently without Moreno even asking for it (unless one counts Charles Black as Moreno’s de facto agent), changed those respective dates to 2019 and 2018.
The critical point is that in Sept. 2013, when this was passed, it was already unlikely that Moreno would have been ABLE to arrange another place for the Angels to play by the time he had to vacate the Stadium under the opt-out clause, even if had elected it that day.
In other words, Moreno had waited too long and blown the effective deadline to exercise the opt-out clause — and then the City “let him up off of the mat,” because they were supposedly afraid that unless he had the extension he would exercise the option to leave immediately. They did this despite that Moreno himself apparently never even said that he wanted it. (My guess is that if he had initiated the request, that itself might have been seen as an act of bad faith under the contract.)
It was an “own goal” by the City, which makes sense if it was playing to lose. This way, they could use the threat of Moreno’s leaving to justify stampeding the public to go along with their development idea — which, incidentally, would not only benefit Moreno but other wealthy people in the City to whom he would assign the development rights. One imagines that that was the point!
Ok…. Just freaked out their for a second …. “Mayor Tom Tait and other critics argue that by giving the Angels more time to leave, the city handed over its negotiating leverage to Moreno. He now has more time to find a stadium site in another city and put the city’s negotiators in a defensive position as the larger deal is worked out.”
http://www.voiceofoc.org/oc_north/article_8f3b6830-1570-11e3-8b11-001a4bcf887a.html?mode=jqm
A real deal with real benefits, indeed.
Nice work, Mr. Lamb.
The blindsiding Sept 3rd package had an even more repulsive element (besides its still-one-sided, STILL anonymously-authored particulars) -an intentionally defective STRUCTURE, to blunt opposition internally or from the Public.
With only ONE (Moreno’s) position on the (mythical) ‘table’ and NO position whatsoever representing the Residents, from the City, HOW can ANY negotiation activity be DETECTED, let alone its SUCCESS MEASURED? A City / Residents position must be constructed and vetted by / to the public, to give ANY meaning to the word ‘Negotiation’
Input from residents is STILL not in a public forum, but via one-directional voice and email boxes to NOWHERE, without a trace of their MAKING IT to the mythical ‘table’, let alone any news of acceptance / rejection. This is not a mechanism, but a farce.
With the current self-generated Council hysteria, what onslaught will the Residents then face when the closed doors open, and the (2 tablets with the) “Product of MONTHS of ‘Negotiation'” emerges? If you believe any objections then, will calmly be taken back behind the Closed Doors for whatever time it takes to resolve, re-read the above. Repeat if necessary.
Continuing a House remodel is pointless while ignoring foundation defects. Additionally – While the appraisal has admirably, but only partially, filled the information vacuum (which the Council incredibly had little to no objection to proceeding under), the defective, discredited CS&L ‘Economic Report’ remains UNcorrected and UN-replaced. That absurdity cannot continue.
Nonpublic dialog with the Angels involving the Council and Staff was supposedly ongoing for almost a year before the Sept 3rd MOU vote. Yet despite the knowledge from participation over that time and the 9 months since, Council Member(s) are still making frequent and repeated public mis-statements, to the effect of-
“Mr Moreno will be saving the taxpayers the $600K of maintenance expense the Residents now pay”
While Mr. Moreno may well propose to pay those expenses, the face-palming-ly consistent omission from the SAME proposal ALSO applies, that the RAISED (by 500K) FLOOR of $2-per-annual seat payments TO THE CITY, GIVES HIM $1 MILLION to cover that $600K ‘generosity’ , a NET LOSS to the City, who STILL has DEBT PAYMENTS to cover with the NOW MISSING remainder. And that FLOOR RAISING WIPES OUT the small STABLE portion of those payments the City HAD been receiving.
“If the Angels leave, the City will Have to Pay $150(?) Million for the Capital Expenses that Mr. Moreno would have paid with (his profits from) the Stadium land deal”
FIRST, 2 things need to be brought before, and substantiated to, the public- Mr. Moreno’s negotiation opinion aside, what does the LEASE HE SIGNED, legally obligate HIM to pay for, and to HAVE BEEN paying for? And HAS HE ? And THEN, IF the city HAS any obligation, let’s see the DETAILS and SUBSTANTIATION for that $150 Million amount, that so far has been tossed around WITHOUT it.
SECOND, one of the FEW things that makes me LAUGH about this situation. Do you remember that old school joke about, “If a plane crashed at the exact point (4 corners) between Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico, where would they bury the survivors?” ( If you need a hint, read it slowly, especially the last word.) Well, the $150 Million ‘question’ has the same answer – If the Angels Leave, WHY would we have to pay ANYTHING, to ANYBODY? I am still waiting for an answer to that from anyone who asks the “$150 Million Question”.
THEN, 2 more things have to be realized. FIRST, the land DEAL has NO (so far) LEGAL WRITTEN relationship to renovations, the Team, or the Stadium. It is with PCI, a legally SEPARATE entity, that Mr. Moreno happens also to own/control. The most ANYONE saying otherwise, knows NOW, is only what they THINK they know. Remember how well THAT worked with the Team Name?
EVEN IF a “FAIR” land deal is warranted, HOW can the implication of a timely mutual solution and the assertion of “NO RISK TO THE CITY” be made with a straight face? Stalled movement on the nearby Plutonium, excuse me, Platinum Triangle development, has the City renting out land for Car Dealer Storage, not collecting Property Tax, Mello-Roos, and School Assessments on development on it, for the moment. When stadium -adjacent development has at best had mixed and long term results (not just the piggy backs on inner city redevelopment and cherry picked examples of success) It is hard to reject the scenario of a quick land flip by/ for Mr. Moreno, followed by more bag-holding for the City, hoping those Magic Beans inside it someday bear fruit.
I really hope the Council hysteria generator(s) will have an Ephiphany, about who they need to concern themselves with and represent. Otherwise, I propose the following, to insure the continuity of only true and complete information to the public- In the spirit of Anaheims emphasis on education and achievement, The city should either supply them with Remedial Mathematics and Reading Comprehension Tutoring to assist their continuance in their positions, or they should prove such concerns to be overblown, by discontinuing their disingenuous statements to the public and henceforth present only the FULL PICTURE in their rhetoric if only in self-respect or for their office.
With the departure of ‘fait accompli’ capitulation strategist Charles Black, it remains to be seen if the new ‘negotiator’ Barrett Sports will rekindle a clean, fresh start that rebuilds the missing or defective foundation of the misbegotten prior attempt, improving structure, communication, and working for TWO PARTY success, or merely step into the hastily- mis cobbled shoes left behind. I stand ready ( as I believe will most others on this blog) to offer CONSTRUCTIVE suggestions and support for Alternative Number One.
Johnny Don’t Like says:
” if the city of Anaheim doesn’t find a way to jump on these terms and make a deal soon, my concern is that they lose the Angels to Tustin, Los Angeles, The City of Industry or Irvine. We’re in the bottom of the ninth here and we need to light up the halo.”
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/-613894–.html
‘Johnny Don’t Like’ is a radio talk show hack job based in West Hollywood. His only qualification is his willingness to say anything. The Register can be quite the shameless prostitute when it chooses to be… (I chose the word prostitute because I felt it was the most gender neutral and thus the most enlightened…)
*Horsepucky Skally, Arte couldn’t find a more pliant City Council even in Irvine. We have supported Anthony Davis and his efforts to build a Multi-Sport Complex at the Great Bark……since Newport Beach thought an International Airport was a better idea….as long as it didn’t cost too much. (Meaning: Our developer buds won’t get the rip off cash of an International Airport if it has to look like a new German Aerodrome in Berlin!) But all that is old cold pizza. Arte knows that Occupying Angel Stadium is 9/10th of the law……and the City won’t slop the hogs in the parking lot till the fat lady sings! The real value of the property is estimated at what? $375 million bucks if they tear down the Stadium and start 150 International Time Shares? Maybe the Ducks will even add an Annex Skate Ranch, if Arte uses his brains. Our Olympic Athletes need some more Ice Skating Facilities in So.Cal. Also, Gymnastics…..add a Olympic Size Michael and Ian/Subway Pool and you are talking. If only Irvine has a brain! At any rate, the Angels aren’t going to move as long as Arte keeps the parking lot and the revenue. Angel Stadium could really use an new improved outfield. The rock quarry never does much when someone hits a home run……because no one can see where it hits. They should have an inter-active Zummertron which not only lets folks see where the ball lands, but then explodes like fire works. But again, this is the reason…….they do nothing in Irvine, where they have all the land and can’t understand how much money they could make with a 24/7 365 Sports Complex….including an NFL Football Team. Maybe Shelly and Donnie Boy Sterling can buy the entire great dog bark after they sell the Clippers!?
Good write up. Touched ’em all.
The level of manipulation, deliberate confusion, mischaracterization, and outright falsehood is really quite shocking. The Kleptocracy has been reveling in their arrogance, but I think the hubris hammer is falling.
Who cares,City Of Anaheim deserves what it gets,They bought out our neighborhood got us uprooted and built new townhouses in the early 90s.They bought us cheap price and in return made huge profit..The City all it does is buy out property and let it stay stagnant not generating any revenue,and build more damm apartments it’s ridiculous…