This press release came over our transom last night from Anaheim Council District 6 candidate Hari Shankar Lal, who is running against longtime insider, Cabal member and Planning Commissioner Natalie Meeks:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, August 19, 2022
Anaheim, California – Longtime consumer advocacy lawyer Hari Lal is thrilled to announce his candidacy for the Anaheim City Council in District 6 (Anaheim Hills). Lal has been a local community leader for over 30 years now, including as co-Chair of the Anaheim Hills-Santiago Geological Hazard District (GHAD), during which time he has overseen the improvement of our dewatering wells and fought to protect our homes from landslides and erosion.
Lal entered the race due to the recent revelations of corruption in City Hall, which resulted in the resignation of Mayor Harry Sidhu. These events have prompted an ongoing FBI investigation into a group that calls itself the “Anaheim Cabal,” in which members of the Chamber of Commerce, the City Council, and others, have conspired in illegal or unethical deals to grant favors to corporations such as Disney, the Los Angeles Angels, and developers across the city, which in turn fund their campaigns.
In Lal’s view, the needs of Anaheim Hills have been neglected by politicians who take their orders from the Resort District. As Councilman, one of his first actions will be to open a District office, at his own expense, off Santa Ana Canyon Road, where local citizens can come with their concerns. Unlike his predecessor, Lal will prioritize fire prevention, halting new developments such as Deer Canyon, and restoring and improving our neighborhoods and parks.
Lal and his family have resided in Anaheim Hills for over 32 years. He is a partner at Lal Harris Edwards Law Group, which also provides pro bono (free) work for senior citizens to assist with living trusts and wills. Additionally, he is the President of Anaheim Ridge Estate Homeowners Association, a delegate to the Board of Directors at Anaheim Hills Planned Community Association (AHPCA), a coordinator at the Canyon-2 Fire Animal Rescue Group, and a past member of the Anaheim Economic Development Commission. His three grown children are all medical community professionals and graduates of Canyon High School.
Hari Lal has been endorsed by numerous Democrats and Republicans, including current Anaheim City Council members Dr. Jose Moreno and Avelino Valencia, OC Supervisor Katrina Foley, Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva, and former Congressman Ed Royce. [Note from Vern – I originally included Tom Daly in this list due to a misunderstanding, but his name was not included in the actual press release that went out.]
Hari Lal for Anaheim City Council 2022
Save Anaheim Hills!
Stop the Corruption!
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The photo gives an impression, that Mayor Tait and Councilmember Denise Barnes are supporting Hari Lal.?
I presume that Denise is. I can’t imagine that Tait would support Meeks, but he might feel constrained about endorsing. I think it’s premature (for me, at least) to ask.
Running against a former public employee who pulls down $150,000 pension every year for life after making nearly $300,000 a year in total compensation to build nine-figure boondoggles like ARTIC.
Good luck. Couldn’t find a person more invested in the Cabal’s status quo.
Unless it’s SOAR founder and AnaheI’m First leader Gloria Ma’ae.
Or maybe OC Business Council VP Natalie Chupacabra.
This guy is as corrupt as they come. He’s no different from Harry Sidhu and in it for the exact same reasons. The parallels alone from how he’s running and focusing more on Harry’s corruption rather than anything he has to offer the city is a red flag. Its because he has nothing to offer, he will just be better at personal gain and better at hiding it.
I think you may have to read the story again. Anonymous Meeks shill.
Right now, Brave Sir Trollin, not being corrupt is something huge to offer the city.
If he’s as self-serving as Sidhu — and Cloria, and Trevor, and the rest of the Cabal — we’ll know pretty quickly because DISNEY AND THE ANGELS WILL START FUNDING HIM!
Anyway, that you for coming here and doing an absolute pratfall of a hit job!
Maybe he thinks all Indians called Harry or Hari are the same.
Hari Lal is one of the most sincere candidates . He is highly disciplined honest and transparent. Citizens of Anaheim must give him chance to prove himself .
He’s very impressive. Also a civil rights lawyer!
I’ll wait until the Anaheim Observer makes his analysis of this race.
Actually the Worsdsmith is back, and wordsmithing, even wordsmithed a sentence or two about Hari Lal. Matt’s wife musta told him to get off the couch. (Meanwhile MY wife won’t let me comment on Matt’s or Dan’s blogs.) 🙁
https://www.anaheimobserver.com/2022/08/15/anaheims-council-election-draws-fewest-candidates-in-more-than-20-years/
Matt’s guiding conceit, in this piece that’s really just a survey of this year’s Council candidates, is that the fact there are fewer candidates than usual is one more testament to the failure of District Elections. Because supposedly one of the main justifications of District Elections was that it would encourage MORE CANDIDATES to run. I really don’t remember anyone saying that, I never counted that as a reason for districting. In any case, as I mention in my new piece, I’m GLAD we don’t have a shitload of decent candidates this year, that’s a recipe for more Kleptocracy.
Here’s Wordsmith on Hari: “What is remarkable about this year is the absence from the Anaheim council ballot of any genuine grass-roots, Joe-Citizen council candidates (with the quasi-exception of Lal, a gadfly who may have he ability to write his campaign a substantial check).”
So … a Gadfly Of Means. I guess that’s the Wordsmith Lowdown on Lal.
He’s been party to so much — do you think that the FBI has talked to him and asked to see his financial records?
Everybody knows that the Chamber was paying him to scribble their pabulum at the same time they were getting City subsidies for this and that non-work.
As conservatives (used to) say – cash is fungible. But he was also the beneficiary of $200 an hour Rob Reiner dough for a few years, including writing op-ed pieces for the left-wing politicians he pretends to despise. He’s been on the dole one way or another for 15 years.
Hey everybody who likes the guy in this story – please visit / like / follow / share Hari’s new Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/lalforcouncilman
We track our click-to records here, though we don’t usually mention them — but it looks lots of the cool kids are clicking on http://www.lalforcouncilman2022.com/ to see what he’s all about. Enjoy your trip there — and tell him that OJB sent you!
My previous comment has not been posted here, WHY? Look into his history and past. Mr. Lal …[most redacted] Be a fare site and platform to post comments for all to read. Let us citizens be the judge and investigate, but please don’t hide comments.
I got your first, run-on paragraph comment, and I didn’t approve it. To start with we GENERALLY don’t allow anonymous attacks. But you are a stubborn anonymous “Kathy D,” even using the same name and IP address
twiceFOUR TIMES! So we will be a “fare” site, and I’ll share some of the false claims you made, anonymously, about Hari.Mostly it was just a lot of name-calling. You do offer a suggestion: “The city must demand both him and his partners lifetime tax records history to be open to the public. They must do a full and comprehensive background check on him and his family.” Wow, the CITY must do all that, eh? It’s the “City’s” job to investigate Hari? Would that apply to ONLY Hari? Do you want the City to also demand the lifetime tax records of Trevor O’Neil, Natalie Meeks, Lorri Galloway? Or are they just automatically deserving of trust, maybe because of how they look?
Here’s one of your claims: “He was involved in and apparently smuggled his brothers Murari Lal and J. LAL (Jawahar?) INTO the country illegally many years ago. They did everything illegally and have ripped off our system.” I asked Hari about that. Many years ago or not, he does not know those men; they may have immigrated illegally and may have his same surname, but he doesn’t know them. I guess that’s the kind of attack to be expected when an IMMIGRANT runs for office around here.
You were REALLY reaching there. Let’s see you reach some more…
“My colleague knows someone who was falsely sued by this man.” Oh, anonymous person has a colleague who KNOWS somebody who says they were “falsely sued” by Hari. Hari vaguely remembers someone about 30 years ago whining that he was “falsely sued.” When you’ve got a decades-long legal career, some people do end up unhappy with you.
The rest of your comment was just a lot of name-calling that I won’t repeat. Hari wants to know who wrote this. I told him, “Welcome to the club, you’re gonna get a lot more anonymous attacks now that you’re running for office.” I told him it’s most certainly not anyone named Kathy D. I told him he’ll probably see the same comment posted elsewhere on less principled sites.
It’s nice though to see such consternation on the establishment side over Hari Lal’s run for Council! Say hello to Trevor and Natalie for me, and that’ll be enough out of you, “Kathy D.”
The person this comment of mine was addressed to begged to have all their negative comments about Hari taken down. (This was after Hari’s investigators tracked down their IP address.) So, after a few days, I did. No wonder most of our trolls use IP scramblers.
But this is a small part of the harassment Hari’s been receiving, as he runs against a longtime CABAL member in Anaheim Hills. Over a hundred of his campaign signs have disappeared, many of them discovered in ditches defaced with spray paint. This week he has had to deal with a nuisance suit from the nephew of Ms. Meeks, claiming that there’s a conflict between him running for Council and serving on a the Santiago Geologic Hazard Abatement District. A farfetched claim, as Hari shows in his masterful argument which the judge will hear on Friday. (I’ll report on that hearing in a story to be called “Cabal Flopsweat.”)
Supposedly this was an emergency because after Friday it’ll be too late to remove anyone’s name from the ballot. (And the cabal really wants to impose Natalie M on the Hills without a vote.) Well, then the suit should have been brought weeks ago, not two days ago when Hari was at a family wedding in Canada!
They are really worried about this guy, it’s plain to see!
I don’t have a problem with it being an emergency hearing or filed at the tail end of the permissible contest period. I believe that he could choose which seat to vacate, and it would obviously be the SGHAD seat.
Natalie Meeks is responsible for the upholstered white-elephant-cum-reptile-egg that cost eye-popping amounts of money while providing virtually nothing of added-value except for some occasionally pretty lights for people to enjoy while driving north on the 57. Hari Lal should be holding press conferences in ARTIC every week detailing her history as a suppurating wound of taxpayer wealth while on the City staff. (Didn’t you say that she lived in the south coast at the time?)
In such cases we would normally confer with the target of the anonymous attack to see whether they want to preserve evidence.
Convey your own apologies to him — although if you’re sincere you might use a stronger word than “inconvenience.”
Wow. I knew that Hari tracked down that IP address, I wonder what else he did? I wish it ended like this for all our anonymous trolls.
I’ll delete your comments tomorrow, “Kathy D.”