The Rednecks, or at least, SOME rednecks, say this on occasion, and I hate to quote them because it‘s a little vulgar for my taste, but I can think of no more appropriate way to begin this piece, so here goes: “Don’t be pissin’ on my leg and tellin’ me it’s rainin’.”

I’m still mad and embarrassed that I briefly fell for that performance Tuesday night of Councilman Carlos Leon and new “Ethics Officer” Artin Berjikly, assuring the public that they were “EXPANDING” the Council’s Public Calendar Ordinance, when by any measure they were weakening it, watering it down. Talk about the Frick and Frack of Political Misdirection!

Could Tuesday’s unanimous action be the beginning of a Transparency Backslide in Anaheim – barely a year after that much-ballyhooed 2023 “Fall of Reform?” It’s too early to say, but I know what was happening Tuesday Jan. 14 and it was NOT raining.

Let’s rewind to about here: Mayor Ashleigh and her Council were elected, late 2022, in the wake of not only the well-known Sidhu/Ament FBI scandals but literally decades of corruption and pay-to-play government in Anaheim as partly documented in the JL Report. Ashleigh and her Council were elected on the promise of reform and transparency. So, mostly in the Fall of 2023, they enacted several modest ordinances to that end, including the one we call “Public Calendars.”

The Public Calendars ordinance, enacted 14 months ago, required the Mayor, Council & top staff to post, on the City’s website,

“…all non-internal city-related appointments, calls and meetings with members of the public, businesses, developers, union reps, consultants and lobbyists.

“For each entry, Calendars must include the date & time of the meeting, the name(s), title(s) and affiliated organization(s) of the people in attendance, as well as a general statement of the topic of the meeting.”

Artin described what’s included there as “making more accessible things that could otherwise be subject to a Public Records Act request,” and we know what a pain in the ass those are and how long it takes to get them filled, so this was helpful.

And this was followed by a short, reasonable list of exemptions to the above (personal, legal, etc.) Meetings that DON’T have to be reported.

One weakness of this ordinance, as with all these “Fall of Reform” ordinances, was that there was no penalty or consequence for non-compliance. And indeed, for this past year, compliance has been spotty for one reason or another.

• We’ve frequently noted, for example, Councilmember A reporting that they and Councilmember B were at such and such a meeting, but Councilmember B not reporting that meeting.
• They’ll mention for example that they “met with Tom Daly” without noting that man is not just a former Mayor but a LOBBYIST FOR DEVELOPERS, which most of the public doesn’t know.
• For most of last year, Norma Kurtz’ calendar showed not her own meetings but Natalie Meeks’ – possibly a technical glitch (later fixed) but with the effect that we had no way to see who Norma was meeting with the whole time she was voting on Disneyland Forward AND running for re-election.

…but it was all too much…

City Manager Vanderpool now says he’s been getting a lot of questions about which appointments or events MUST be reported (and of course, which ones can be conveniently omitted.) Clearly it was high time to radically modify the Public Calendar ordinance, to, as Artin puts it, “strike a balance between transparency and practicality,” “practicality” being either cynic-speak for “there are meetings I prefer not to report” or lazy-speak for “it’s a pain in the ass.”

But really, how much work is it anyway, to keep these public calendars? Click here to see Mayor Ashleigh’s calendar since Jan. ’24, that’s not overwhelming. All of these people have aides who are relatively well-paid, and there must be some kind of template they use.

Well, it’ll be even less work now, now that top staff has proposed, and Council has unanimously agreed to, a much bigger list of exemptions to what has to be reported, including “unscheduled meetings … in which a city-related matter was very briefly discussed and the encounter was not intended for that purpose,” and “unscheduled phone calls… where a matter affecting that business was very briefly discussed” etc…

And lots of other new exemptions as well, check out the red-lined ordinance HERE. Imagine defining “very briefly” when it’s in your interest to define “very briefly.” There was lots of talk Tuesday about the possibility of “impromptu phone calls” being taken by councilmembers – hey, anybody could make an impromptu phone call, even Arte Moreno!

Enter George Orwell.

LEON: I just have a couple of clarifying questions, mainly for the public. Mr. Berjikly, are we getting rid of the public calendar posting? At all?

BERJIKLY: Uh, no we are not. In fact we, in our belief, we are CLARIFYING it, to answer many questions that have come up over the last year, and we’re in fact EXPANDING it, to now include, CLEARLY, that public events attended by City officials in your City capacity, are ABSOLUTELY to be included in this policy.

LEON: [with reverse accordion gesture] So we’re EXPANDING the policy.

BERJIKLY: Correct.

“EXPANDING?!?” Now I’m getting mad again. They added FIVE types of exemptions to the policy – FIVE types of events/meetings that no longer have to be reported – but they want us to believe they’re “EXPANDING” the transparency policy, because… have you got this yet? Because they’ve now made it clear that Councilmembers HAVE to report when they appear in public, at ribbon-cuttings, parades, celebrations, the daily photo-ops. How fucking stupid do they think we are? We see that shit all the time, Councilmembers flaunt it. That’s what Facebook and Instagram are for. And they’re trying to pass this off as “expanded” transparency. I have to go for a walk now before I start cussing, I have a lot more to say, but meanwhile in the spirit of transparency study these:

Okay I’m back, and this obviously needs to be explained to these people AS THOUGH TO CHILDREN: The purpose of the Public Calendars is NOT that we are such big fans of yours that we want to see every little thing you do; the purpose is that we suspect, from long Anaheim experience, that important decisions that affect us all are being made in private consultation with powerful special interests, and it at least helps us to be able to KEEP TRACK of that a little. And yeah, that is NOT when you are mugging for the cameras and taking selfies.

To Ashleigh & Crowd

You guys keep pointing out that “state law doesn’t even require this,” that you’re going above & beyond, that Anaheim under you guys is “on the cutting edge” of transparency. Well, that is as it should be and needs to be, as no other California town (since Bell) has had such corruption scandals. And this is doubtless due to the fact that no other California town has billions of tourist dollars flowing through it every year. This has been the culture here for decades, and it’s not gonna change in two years. It lies in wait. Let’s NOT have a Transparency Backslide.

And you guys keep suggesting everything’s better now because YOU GUYS are in charge. And that you guys are the paragons of ethics and virtue. And maybe you believe that, and maybe it’s even true. But someone else will be Mayor and Council soon enough, and you don’t know who, and it won’t be you guys. You owe it to Future Anaheim to keep the guardrails in place and strong. Let’s NOT have a Transparency Backslide.

Finally, this Artin Berjikly fellow, this new Ethics Officer. Maybe he does something that we don’t know about. But as far as we can tell so far, his job is to get paid $234k a year just to CONVINCE THE PUBLIC that Anaheim is the very paragon of ethics and virtue. And that is window dressing we can’t afford.