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The Anaheim Mayor with his “pot entrepeneur” son Rohan, on a bed of weed.
… and then, 28 minutes later, he changed that vote retroactively to a NO, claiming that he was “confused” about what he was voting on! Was the Mayor high on something?
Harry has never been the sharpest knife in the drawer, and it appears he changed his vote AFTER he realized that the measure had FAILED, and that he had just made a controversial vote that didn’t even end up having any concrete benefit to his Chamber of Commerce funders (who’d originally pushed for the motion) OR to his “pot entrepeneur” son Rohan. (If he didn’t happen to be the Mayor, he may not have been allowed to change his vote after the fact like that.)
Remember, this measure – to repeal Anaheim’s current bans on marijuana dispensaries and “regulate cannabis distribution, manufacturing, cultivation, retail sale, deliveries and testing laboratories,” was only put on the agenda thanks to MAYOR HARRY SIDHU providing a “third” to a motion from the very pot-enthusiastic Lucille Kring and Jordan Brandman on April 21.
Moreno – a different set of priorities.
(It used to be a councilperson only needed a SECOND vote to put an item on the next meeting’s agenda, but last year, in an effort to keep Jose Moreno‘s items off, Harry changed the rule to THREE. In fact, here’s a good place to consider just a few of the items that Jose has been unable to get onto the agenda even for discussion, thanks to this “third” rule)…
- putting a rent cap on mobile home parks, some of whose owners have been raising rents exorbitantly;
- putting a rent cap on apartments, some of whose owners were raising rents exorbitantly (until the state stepped in);
- extending no-cause eviction protection planned by the state for January 2020 into the final months of 2019;
- publicizing the city-ordered appraisal for the Angels Stadium property;
- granting more time for public review and input over the Stadium deal;
- a vast array of campaign finance reform measures;
- dedicating the day May 30 to Anaheim’s graduates who were denied a ceremony by COVID-19;
- and just last night, passing a “Black Lives Matter” resolution… (and much more I’ll remember later.)
So, those are the sort of things that Jose Moreno has been unable to get onto the council agenda for lack of a third, but Mayor Sidhu happily provided a third for bringing cannabis dispensaries into Anaheim.
**********************
Rohan Sidhu, chilling at the pad.
Then, investigative journalist Duane Roberts discovered that Harry’s 23-year old son Rohan, who lives with Harry in his vast palatial Anaheim Hills mansion, is in fact a “pot entrepeneur” – see Duane’s story “Anaheim Cannabis Push Could Make Mayor Sidhu’s Son a Wealthy Man!”
Reaction to that revelation of what would appear to be a conflict of interest to just about any normal person led Harry to consult with the City Attorney, who told his boss there wasn’t really any conflict, BUT to avoid even any APPEARANCE of conflict, “in an abundance of caution®,” he recused himself from the discussion at the May 12 meeting. And then sent in a letter to the FPPC for advice on the matter.
And a couple days ago the FPPC, which in reality is just about the mildest little watchdog you can imagine, wrote back that NO, thanks for asking, you can perfectly well go ahead and vote on this matter without conflict. So Harry began discussion on this item last night by proudly announcing his official lack of conflict, and that he would be participating in the discussion but couldn’t yet say how or whether he would vote.
(I kind of wish I hadn’t dared him publicly so many times to vote FOR it; somebody must have told him how controversial pot still is in this somewhat backward town, and how much his “yes” vote will help his recall.)
Stephen can hold his head up this time, I guess.
And although he announced he’d be part of the discussion, he uttered NOT A WORD pro or con. Even when Denise Barnes demanded to know his opinion, he chided her like a nosy child. O’Neil, Barnes and Faessel remained adamant ANTI-POT votes. You could practically hear Stephen Faessel pounding his fist on the table like Churchill: “This is something I BELIEVE IN, this will be my LEGACY vote!” Jeez, what pressure he must have been under from the Chamber – but at least now he can make a proud defiant face instead of a pained humiliated face!
So there was no way measure 28 (the measure that legalizes and regulates dispensaries) was gonna pass without both Harry and Jose, and Jose played the coquette at long length, wringing out several concessions from Jordan and Lucille, both of whom seem to be drooling for this to happen. They agreed to change 600 feet from schools etc to 750 feet. They agreed to language to prevent adjacent pot shops. They limited the number of dispensaries to 18 max total; 3 max per council district.
PROBABLY BECAUSE OF ALL OF THAT, Harry assumed Jose was going to vote yes, which JOSE DID NOT. So Harry cast a useless yes vote, and then had it changed after he realized it had failed. (Took him 28 minutes to realize that, apparently – I bet he got a text or call.) LOL. He said he was “confused.” And Jose taunted, “Mayor, we CLEARLY heard you say YES.”
There was a LOT more that happened in this discussion and the ensuing one over the related tax measure (which also failed.) High drama, slapstick hilarity – all you have come to expect from Anaheim Council meetings! But I can’t get to the video right now, it actually says “PERMISSION DENIED.”
LOL again, or rather LMAO – are they trying to edit out Harry’s yes vote? I’ll write more here when that video comes up tonight or tomorrow, but for now I wanted all of you to know – MAYOR HARRY SIDHU VOTED YES ON CANNABIS DISPENSARIES IN ANAHEIM! (Before he voted no.)
Shouldn’t be anything new, both Lucille and Jordan act like they’ve been burning a bowl before the council meetings and in Jordan’s case during the council meeting, he acts like he’s high as a kite sometimes…. Then again in Trevor’s case he looks like somebody that’s too uptight maybe he needs to “burn one” before the meeting.
What procedure did he use to change his vote?
I gotta hear again, once they get the video up. He’s not always easy to understand. They had moved on to Item 29, which was the taxation half of the measure (probably only academic with Item 28 defeated, but Lucille still fought for it like a wildcat) And Harry started asking the clerk something about his vote, she was confused, we were all confused about what he was asking.
Then a few minutes after that, he wanted to be sure that his vote to Item 28 was recorded as a “No.” The clerk responded that he had voted yes, Jose reminded him that he had voted yes, and he claimed he was “confused” about what exactly he’d been voting on, and demanded it be switched to a no.
This is all from just hearing it once, there’s no tape to go back to yet.
Yeah… Out of order at best, illegal at worst.
Hope someone contests the minutes.
What a circus show. But what can you expect with Mayor McClownshoes?
The Jose maneuver is a classic ploy. I used to do it on the OC Planning Commission to at least wring concessions from a project I had no intention of voting for. I can’t believe they fell for it. Oh, wait. Yes I can.
So how is the Wordsmith gonna polish this road apple?
Matt’s been utterly silent about cannabis, except for allowing the goofball POA head to publish a piece there. All the blog’s usual commenters reacted with shock and revulsion and Matt kept silent. Maybe he knows it’s a losing issue with the kleptos’ traditional base, not that he’d say so in public.
Quite the conundrum for a morally empty shill. Support Shidu (new spelling, copyright pending) and the Klepto Kadre or support the Get Off My law ‘N Order Krowd?
Poor Jerb.
There was no proper procedure taken, he just angrily yelled that he was very confused and that his vote was recorded incorrectly, when the reality is that, as Moreno said, he clearly said yes. I hope they’re not editing that part out of the recording. The public needs to see that our local government is run by literal clowns. Thanks for the briefing!
The video of the meeting STILL says “permission denied.” Five days later. It NEVER takes this long.
They had to find out where Rosemary Woods was buried, exhume the corpse, re-animate it and….aw, Hell. Forget it.
But tampering with a public record is a crime so here’s hoping they do it.
It’s up now. It’s bad. It’s HILARIOUS.
https://anaheim.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=2394
After a LONG discussion on item 28 which is reversal of Anaheim’s cannabis bans and the regulation etc of dispensaries… you can go up to
3:14:43, where Harry CLEARLY states what is being voted on… the other six vote – 4 nos, 2 ayes, and Harry says YES at 3:15:31. If he really didn’t know what he was voting on, he’s senile as fuck, because he announced it less than a minute earlier. He DID know. But he doesn’t listen or concentrate well, and I believe he missed Jose voting no.
Then a long discussion commences on item 29, the tax measure. (I’ll update the story tomorrow with some of the amusing parts of that.) But at
3:35:15, twenty minutes after his yes vote, Harry interrupts and asks “madam clerk” to MAKE SURE HE WAS MARKED DOWN AS YES. “I wanted to vote YES regarding measure 28,” he says – unnecessarily but for the second time.
EIGHT MINUTES LATER, 3:43:38 while Jose and Lucille are sparring over tax measures, Harry bursts out “I’M TOTALLY CONFUSED. I know that on 28 I voted yes, but IT WAS A NO VOTE.” Theresa is baffled. “It was a little confusing,” he explains, “that’s why I asked the city attorney where are we now?” He did ask that, which sounded kind of stupid, right as they moved into item 29. Theresa obediently changes his vote.
3:45:33 Jose, amazed, protests, “Mayor, you clearly voted yes.” Harry, maybe embarrassed, says “Please, go ahead.” And Jose laughs, “That, ladies and gentlemen, is called politics. The Mayor doesn’t want to be on the record voting yes, even though he did.”
I could whittle this down to a YouTube. The relevant parts would make it two minutes long, but people might think I cut out something exculpatory. If there are no cuts it would be about half an hour long. Which should I do?
Edit it down, Vern. My two cents.
Yeah, I decided that too. We’re working on it. It’s really funny stuff!
“I’m TOTALLY CONFUSED.”
“28 SKIDOO” SIDHU!
…
(I’m totally confused!)
Actually, not surprising. In 2010 it took the assclown 10 months to figure out where he lived. And he ended up right where he started!
I was so busy with the campaign around the time I put together this video, I forgot to add it to this story, but this is where it belongs. “I AM TOTALLY CONFUSED.”