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It was clear that new Mayor Harry Sidhu (or his writers) intended that to be the memorable catch-phrase of his maiden speech: ANAHEIM IS OPEN FOR BUSINESS!® He repeated the slogan twice, at the beginning and near the middle of the speech, setting down his prepared text, grinning, and stretching his arms wide, as though inviting the advances of a lover. But, what could it mean – “open for business®”? How were we not open for business already?
I mean, one of the hallmarks of Tom Tait‘s eight-year mayorship was his systematic regulatory relief which encouraged the filing of over 180,000 new small businesses, the approval and creation of twelve new hotels WITHOUT public subsidies, and a decrease in Anaheim’s unemployment even better than the national decrease. No reasonable person would claim Tait’s Anaheim was “closed to business.”
But Anaheim’s large well-connected corporations – Disney, Angels, the big resort and Chamber players – became unhappy these past two years (when Tait finally had a majority) that the council didn’t give them exactly everything they wanted, as they’d become accustomed to. They didn’t like that we suddenly had a council that bargained on behalf of Anaheim’s 350,000 people, that realized transient occupancy taxes are the lifeblood of a tourism-dependent town, that believed Anaheim actually has some needs and some value. And they called all this, with manipulative dishonesty, “an unfriendly business climate.”
What Mayor Sidhu and his crowd mean by “open for business” is a return to the pre-2017 attitude, that Anaheim is unspeakably lucky to have the Resort District, Convention Center, Angels, Ducks and Disneyland, and that we had better show our appreciation and gratitude by unquestioningly giving those forces anything they demand, at the risk of losing it all! Just think of everything pre-2017 councils and Mayors gave away or tried to:
- The 1996 California Adventure “partnership agreement” in which we issued $510 million in bonds to finance an expansion of the Anaheim Convention Center and the construction of a $108.2 million parking structure from which Disney receives all profits;
- The 2015 moratorium on collecting any entertainment tax for 45 years;
- The bizarre attempted scheme (2013-14) to rent the Angels Stadium parking lot to Arte Moreno for 60 years for a dollar a year to profit off as he saw fit;
- $800 million in rebated transient occupancy taxes over 20 years to Disney, Wincome Group, and O’Connell Hotels, in return for them building 4-star hotels that didn’t really need any subsidy;
- The $300 million bond for expanding the Convention Center that should have gone to a vote of the people but was pushed through by Council instead.
THAT’s what the Chamber crowd considered normal, considered a “good business climate,” and expects again now that we’re “open for business®.” The frightening thing is, that’s what they got back when they spent only about one million dollars per election (2012, 14, 16) to get the councils they wanted. It beggars the imagination to envision what they might be demanding now that they’ve spent $3 to 4 million electing the Sidhu Council! Fasten your seatbelts everybody…
Winter Emergency Shelter-palooza
Well… none of us were expecting THIS! Talk about a deus ex machina: first thing we know, there’s an EMERGENCY MEETING two days later, to approve an emergency temporary homeless shelter to get us through the cold couple of months until the two (also temporary) shelters the Tait council already has planned go online (late Jan/Feb.) And who could be against this – just look outside at the cold, the rain, and the hundreds and hundreds of homeless people we still have on Anaheim streets and in our parks!
Naturally the reaction among Sidhu supporters was “Well, look at that – Harry could do with a SNAP of his fingers what Tom Tait couldn’t do in eight years – plus this shows he’s a big-hearted caring guy and pretty soon he’ll be able to get all those dirty criminals out of our parks!” But a little poking around showed that this emergency shelter was the brainchild of celebrated, mercurial businessman-philanthropist Bill Taormina, who convinced LT Global to let the city use their long-vacant 2040-50 South State College buildings for free, and arranged for Anaheim’s largest businesses (including Disney, the Angels and the Ducks) to pony up about $300K to help with the costs.
Well … if this was not (among other things) a political stunt, and given the fact that our Anaheim homeless have been dying at the rate of 2-3 a week… why did this end up happening right now, at the changing of the guard, why couldn’t it have happened a week ago, a month ago, months ago? And would it even have happened at all, if anti-subsidy Ashleigh Aitken had overtaken Harry in the late vote counts, as seemed possible? I asked Mr. Taormina, and he took some time before texting me a very discreet answer: “Yes, it would not be possible without the total generosity of the building owner and the business community.”
2040-50 South State College
I read that as a tacit admission that, as much as Taormina would have liked to make this happen sooner, the business partners he was working with were waiting to see if they were going to have the Mayor and council they liked, that they had paid so much for. Once it was clear about a week ago that Harry was going to be their Mayor after all, these businesses experienced a sudden rush of heartfelt generosity, and expectations of the bounty to come from the Sidhu Council motivated them to make the new Mayor look like a big, caring, can-do guy!
Council Chambers Thursday was a curious menagerie of Chamber bigwigs and homeless advocates slapping each other’s backs in congratulations – because who can be against getting emergency shelter for the homeless six weeks earlier than expected – just look outside at the rain, wind and cold! Thankfully there is still one adult left on the Council, Dr Jose Moreno, who made sure that 1) we are indemnified (by Taormina of course) against any legal trouble we have for doing this damn thing so hastily, and 2) if this thing ain’t done TIMELY – by Dec 20, which is the WHOLE POINT – Anaheim gets our money back, whether it’s $600K or $1.4 million, which wasn’t clear yet. Thanks for thinking of those little details, Jose!
Next, some time very soon, watch these companies who gave 25K to 50K line up and ask for the usual 9-figure giveaways, while reminding us of their winter 2018 homeless beneficence. I hope they don’t. We’ll have to create some kind of visual aids reminding the public of the difference between 5 figures and 9 figures. Fasten your seat belts, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride – ANAHEIM IS OPEN FOR BUSINESS®!
Is Anaheim is Open For Business® registered by PringleCorp®?
Speaking of Pringle, we were told (at Mayor Tait’s parting shindig) that Curt has FINALLY registered as a lobbyist in Anaheim – after years of behaving like one, and only after being assured that he has a Sidhu-Brandman-O’Neil council to work with.
Complicating things however: we also heard that he’s had a falling out with the Chamber crowd and Kris Murray, and that he’s now backing Don Wagner for 3rd district Supervisor while Ament and the Chamber are backing Kris. Such schisms if they exist can only be a good thing for the public.
Actually heard the same slogan last week in Fullerton.
From Ahmad and Jesus? That’s weird.
No, of course not.
Well yeah it sounds like Fitzgerald, but I don’t know what sudden change in the kleptos’ favor she’d be celebrating there.
Except that Jesus Quirk Silva sold out (probably for next to nothing) to Chaffee to make a deal on an unsolicited proposal to build a “boutique” hotel about 200 feet from where Kelly Thomas was murdered. Classic cronyism, and Jesus switched his vote after talking to “three people” he alleged were “experts” on something or other.
Meanwhile this Ahmed person (whose district this is in) sat in the front row like a fungus on a tree stump letting it all happen and not making even a shallow, plaintive whimper.
Thank you very much for the fine article Vern.
What Sidhu meant was “Anaheim coffers are open to Businesses “.
For withdrawal.
Would asking for a drive through window put too much of a burden on the Smash N’ Grab Club®?
Another thought on this: has anybody actually seen any budgets for this project and can they identify people doing an audit on how the public money will be spent?
How much might that tourism charity be taking for their own labor and overhead?
Good question. Are you volunteering to put in a public records request, Zenger? I’m sure you can find an attorney.
Note:”Ahmad” is another name for the the Prophet Muhammad and ‘Jesus’ in Spanish is ‘Jesus’…the Anaheim City Council in any language…is Cluster f—!!!…
I have My Council Member Denise Barnes’Back’and of course Dr.Jose F.Moreno we need to be the “Resistance”a respectable opposition to what we know are going to be going back to their “old ways” of putting the Disneyland/Resort the Platinum Triangle ‘First’..2020 is coming fast, Lucille will be out and the 5th District will be up so we have to make plans,or start thinking about who’s going to take those seats ‘NOW’!!
Talked to Taormina again just now, and this project now has a name, are you ready for it?
The ANAHEIM WAY Shelter!
This is in reference to an old phrase I hadn’t heard, but Faessel mentioned it to Brandman Thursday night and they both grinned and maybe winked. Goes back way before I was here, till around 1973 (wait that’s before Brandman’s time too), when some guy called Tom Ligler who wanted to expand the Convention Center defied critics who said it couldn’t be done, or done well or right, by saying “Of course we can – it’s the Anaheim Way!”
I got more clarification about why this couldn’t have happened sooner, and from Bill’s point of view the old Tait council was very hard to work with because they were “skeptical of everything,” and he understands how the businesses involved didn’t want to be involved until they knew they had Harry. And they thought of Ashleigh as a continuation of Tom.
Well, I guess that’s a wealthy businessman’s point of view. From my point of view I appreciated Tait Moreno Vanderbilt et al looking after the interests of the rest of the city. And it’s nice that some people may have an earlier opportunity to get shelter from the cold, if this Anaheim Way Shelter works out. But still, watch your wallets these next four years!
There’s another, better, name for it that will be unveiled most likely later this week.
Unfortunately, for me, “The Anaheim Way” has come to be hugely expensive, publicly funded boondoggles like ARTIC and the ridiculously expensive and unecessary freeway known as Gene Autry Way, replete with a useless and massive bridge over the I-5.
The interesting thing is that no one to my knowledge has ever compiled a list of the public money poured by the Daly and Pringle regimes into the coffers of the hard hats and the “Resort” raptors.
Should be done. And it’s probably up to us.
“Well, I guess that’s a wealthy businessman’s point of view.”
No, that’s Grade B bullshit.
The more I think of it, the curiouser I become about these “assurances” Moreno was given about indemnity and reimbursement in case of failure to achieve milestones.
Were they to be added to already written agreements; or are there written agreements to follow? If there were agreements voted on they surely didn’t include Moreno’s requests which came as afterthoughts.
So will the assurances by someone, somewhere be verbal only? Who knows? Who cares?
Check the video. Taormina said that he’d pay all legal fees regarding litigation and the City Attorney said that they could accept an indemnification agreement if it was signed that night. I don’t know whether it was.
Of course, that doesn’t cover the most significant cost of letting people sleep in a warehouse that (so far as we know) doesn’t yet have sprinklers and fire exits — and I don’t think that he made any promise about paying the city’s damage awards.
So millions of dollars and incredible teamwork has made exactly what you have begged for happen, and since he can’t take credit for it, Moreno hates on it…. ehh what about the fire exits! You guys are really something else.
$300K (not millions of dollars) HELPED make this happen six weeks earlier than the shelters the Tait Council already had in the works.
All around it’ll save some lives, make many more lives more comfortable, and help free up more park space, so nobody’s complaining. Still, it’s appropriate for us to ask some questions. Especially about the timing.
Also Moreno never “hated on it.” And fire exits might be important. And yeah we are something else.
Man, just imagine what all this cooperation could have done TWO YEARS ago.
But hey, back then, this was all about blaming Tom Tait.
Nothing else has changed.
This is the same troll that was posting as “Anaheim.” I consider him banned, but as this was a mild version of his shtick and you and Ryan have already responded, I’ve left it up. Note that lying about Moreno is one of its central themes, if you need help identifying it.
I’m complaining! This is costing $1,400,000 to serve about 200 (if that) for about 60 days. That’s over $100 per person per day. Anaheim would have been much better off giving people vouchers to stay in motels in other cities. But THAT wasn’t a good option for them because it didn’t provide money and credit for Visit Anaheim Cares.