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Anaheim’s historical first district election has become not so much a process to remedy the inadequate presence of Hispanics in the local government, and to offer better representation of all neighborhoods, but a continuation of the fight over the distribution of city‘s resources.
The Disney created group “Support Our Anaheim Resort Area” (SOAR) has blanketed the city with huge signs for their sponsored candidates. They insist that Disneyland, wealthy developers and hoteliers, and the Angel’s baseball team’s owner need city subsidies to conduct business in Anaheim in order to benefit the residents. The city council they’ve dominated thus far has fostered an unequal development of the material and social fabric of the city. Tourists coming to Disneyland and driving into other areas of the city, are surprised to see the other Anaheim. And then if they go to the Hills, they think it is another town.
As many residents have concluded, to effectively support the tourism industry the entire city has to become a world class destination. The resources have to be accordingly allocated, not mostly for subsidies and for resort oriented amenities such as the exclusive tennis club and the pompous ARTIC transportation center. Riots may not occur again soon, and areas like this one in East Anaheim may no longer be neglected :
“ …we wish to thank you for taking time from your schedule to visit our forgotten little area of Anaheim. Now that you have seen some of the existing problems, we ask for your advice. How can relatively small areas such as ours, move the city to address the following common sense improvement recommendations? Repeated meetings and correspondence with the City Council, Planning and other Departments in the past has not resulted in any meaningful change.
Shopping mall. The City should work with the mall property
owners to develop a long-term revitalization plan. The shopping mall has become a hangout for homeless individuals who use the former Ralph’s breezeway as shelter from the elements…There is a lack of adequate retail within a reasonable walking proximity to the residents of the Lincoln/Rio Vista neighborhood. It is especially disappointing to those of us who we grew up in this area, chosen to buy homes in the neighborhood to be close to our aging parents, but can’t allow our parents and children to walk to the shopping mall due to the lack of family friendly shops and the uncertainty of their safety.
Homeless Shelter: If the Anaheim (Kraemer) site is selected, make sure that a comprehensive homeless rehabilitation program, permanent housing and safety plan is implemented on a predetermined verifiable schedule. Implementation status must be reported frequently and no less that each calendar quarter…Address our neighborhood homeless lady problem. The police have been helpless to act. She needs mental healthcare.”
This is an excerpt of a letter that Rio Vista neighbors gave to Mr Vanderbilt, who is NOT a member of the resort-controlled council majority. He had met with some of us regardless Spitzer’s homeless shelter proposal . Copies were given to the entire council.
The battle for the soul and future of the city is crucial in district
3, where the leading candidates are both Democrats supported by prominent Republicans: Mayor Tait supporting Dr Moreno against Brandman and his now silent mentor, Curt Pringle. The resort has heavily financed Brandman and they oppose Dr Moreno, who if elected will challenge their control of the city government. Their democrat PR person is questioning the support of Mayor Tait. Brandman has not distanced himself from Pringle, who in a pre-Trump move posted guards to prevent Hispanics from voting, and who has greatly profited from siphoning city resources through his lobbying firm.
This district election’s fundamental issue is how to invest in the future. The “good government” coalition and the people’s candidates’ goal is to stop constantly giving away city tax revenues, to use them instead to benefit the residents. The resort’s candidates are window-dressing some of the residents’ concerns, but they are not addressing the subsidies created imbalances as this requires confronting their financers.
Donna and Vern canvassing at Miraloma Neighborhood
The task of making the city government accountable and serving all the communities depend on us electing non-SOAR/OCTax PAC candidates, as most of them have a better understanding of what is needed to heal our city.
I hope that Donna Acevedo-Nelson or Mark Lopez will be elected in my district. I hope that Dr Moreno is elected, to prove that full participation of the neighborhoods can forge partnerships that bring significant progress to our city.
These words of Dr King, which I quoted in a post at the beginning of the districting process, still resonate:
Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy.
Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice.
Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God’s children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.
I would like to see Donna win, but really, the battle is in 1 and 3. Maybe 4. There’s no doubt the Kleptos® are worried about Der Kringle®.
Lodge is a stiff and I don’t think there’s enough Klepto Loot® in the world to make the cipher Brandman look like anything other than a weenie in a suit.
I received this message from a neighbor : “I attended the East District Neighborhood Council Meeting last night. Interesting to note that none of the people running for District 5 City Council member were in attendance. It sends a strong signal regarding their idea on getting to know the neighborhoods they want to represent/help.”
The East Council meetings rotate among Miraloma, Anaheim Hills and Rio Vista. Last night it was held in Rio Vista. I will send the candidates the letter we gave to Mr Vanderbilt, and ask their opinions. Hopefully at least their campaign managers or spoke-persons may respond. It’d interesting to hear what Vern and Mr Barash have to say besides keeping track of their campaign signs.
BTW I heard that code enforcement is taking down the gigantic signs, although a Faessel one went up at the gas station at Lincoln and Rio Vista. Quite a few business are displaying these Faessel signs, which indicate that the Chamber of Commerce, as normally do, motivate their members quite well.
Damn… I wish we’d have known. We sure would have been there!
I know that Donna has been canvassing and talking to neighbors, and I forgot to mention this meeting to you.
I couldn’t find Sandra or Faessel e-mail addresses, as I don’t do FB, could you please forward the message that I sent to Donna and Mark to them. Thanks.
Jaja it’s funny now with districts so small.
Last night a jaywalker got hit by a car on Lincoln, and we went by to see what happened, and who was there but Sandra Angel who happens to live right there. She shared her collection of Mark Lopez hit mailers which we don’t get because they only come to Republicans. (We DID get the Faessel hit piece from Ahmanson.) The Lopez hit pieces coulda been written by Cunningham, it’s all the same attack lines.
And tonight I was just finishing up walking the precinct near Rio Vista and Wagner… and found myself standing in front of Faessel’s house. Almost knocked and said hi but didn’t. He has three of his own big signs and one Lou Correa. All his neighbors have Faessel signs.
Except, the night before, I went to a Democrat’s house who had a Faessel sign, and I told him the usual thing about how we oppose the giveaways to Disney etc., unlike Faessel, and the guy said “I think I tend to agree with Donna on that more than Steve.” I gestured at his sign, “Is Steve your friend?” “Not really but he’s been a customer of mine. Would you like to put a sign up next to his?” Hence, the lawn on Marjan that has two council signs!
Thanks for contacting the neighbor who made the observation about the absence of the candidates at the neighborhood meeting. I hope that Donna or whoever is elected will finally help us. I found the e-mail contact to the Faessel campaign, but not Angel’s.
Ricardo, had I known about this meeting I surely would have went. Politics is not really my thing, and I do not wish a career in politics either. But I could not sit by and watch SOAR/Disney push out many residents. The corruption, tax giveaways, and greed of the “well connected” needs to stop. I am a fighter and will do my best for Anaheim!
P.S. I read your article and suggest that you do your homework on Mark Lopez. He does not care about Anaheim – his goal is County Supervisor when his boss Shawn Nelson terms out. I guarantee it.
Sandra, It is refreshing that people like you run based on the local needs and not as a career politicians. I’m sure that most of the candidates would’ve attended the meeting had they known.These neighborhood councils are an old institution in the city and fairly non-partisan, and they’re a good forum to get to know the issues and the neighbors. Once in a while council members attend. Way back people like Bob Zemel ,and fairly recently Kris Murray and Gail Eastman showed up to shore up support for their political agendas.
I don’t know much about Mark, except for the information in his website and mailers. I will do my homework. I have invited him to present his ideas here so that we get to know him.
In my neighborhood (which happens to be right at the border of 3 and 4) there are yards signs up all over the place that NEVER have had signs at all. The new districts have created a groundswell of participation, if only of the minor support kind, which is the reason many of us supported them in the first place.
Cunningham (who is paid to belch such bullshit) is still bitching about “neighbors electing neighbors,” but the fact is that a lot of people are paying attention that never did before. In his screeds he also carefully omits to mention that the Kletopcracy® and their union 5th columnists are trying to buy the district election with massive spending.
Will Klepto Bucks® work, I wonder? It’s hard to sell a Yugo no matter how you spend on advertising.
P.S. I got a hit piece on Ferreras that had every single, simple-minded description of him scribbled by the Wordsmith on the Kleptoblog®..
I’m amazed walking precincts that it seems practically 90% of households have at least one voter in them, sometimes half a dozen. Not used to that, from walking precincts in other towns in other years.
I wonder if it’s Anaheim, or if it’s Trump, or if it’s districting? No doubt all three.
Cunningham is still stuck with the voting rights act issue, as a diversionary tactic to avoid discussing his patrons involvement in bankrolling their candidates and continue fleecing the city. I’m still amazed though how some factions of the GOP still use this man as their PR. Your observation about his role of moderator in Do’s Homeless forum was right on.
His latest braying is an attack on Howard Ahmanson, as in: how could he be backing leftist radicals over conservative Republicans?
Of course the question virtually answers itself: Kring, Inc.® and LodgeCo® are Kleptocrat Running Dogs® and crony capitalism has nothing to do with conservatism. Ahmanson clearly wants to make the case that the Klepto-skimming® is not good government, and good government is not a partisan issue.
Mark Lopez responded, acknowledging the issues facing my neighborhood. Thanks Mark.
No response from the Faessel’s campaign. I was hoping that at least his spoke-person, Mr David Barash would follow his agree to disagree and willing to work together :
“We disagree about many things, but we are still neighbors. Once this election is through, we may find ourselves working together to solve some local issues. If we treat each other with respect while we fight over some , then we’ll be more willing to work with each to improving things on which we agree.”
And meanwhile, as you know, Donna is planning to meet with you guys at the blighted shopping center in question – the ex-Ralph’s at Rio Vista and Lincoln – to discuss solutions.
You’ve mentioned Tait and Vanderbilt have already been there and nothing has happened. Well, I think that’s pretty easy to figure out. Anything those two try to do is stymied by the current majority, the majority we’re trying so hard to defeat.
Both the deplorable condition of the shopping mall and the potential impact of the shelter on the neighborhood are complex issues that have been overlooked by the city. The shopping mall has been a problem for the last 15 years, and gotten worse.
The priorities set by the council majority have taken resources, time and energy away from resolving neighborhoods problems. As much as Mr Vanderbilt and Mayor Tait wanted to help, their hands were tied. At least Mr Vanderbilt met with us at least twice, while Murray and Brandman ignored our request to meet with them.
It is interesting the silence of Mr Faessel, who not only resides close to my neighborhood but proudly claims his credentials of being a member of several city commissions. Besides the predictable power plant resolution,his involvement in resolving neighborhoods problems is not known, except for his SOAR related activities.
Good Morning Mr. Toro –
My silence over the weekend was due to my enjoying San Diego with my family and making no effort to read any of the political blogs.
Personally, I’ve been concerned about that abandoned shopping center at Lincoln and Rio Vista as well. I see that you were able to get an email address for the Faessel campaign. I’m hoping you sent your information to that address. I’ll reach out the them and see if it was received.
I’m not sure why Steve wasn’t at the East Neighborhood Council meeting. It is likely he had a conflict in his schedule.
I’ve heard that the city plans on restructuring the neighborhood councils to be in line with each voter district. That will be nice if it happens because our district is currently split with a large portion belonging to the Central District and a smaller portion belonging to the East District.
It would also be nice if the councils met more regularly. Once a quarter is a bit of a stretch.
Regarding Code Enforcement taking down signs… Regardless of size, any signs on city owned property or public right away are subject to removal.
The large signs owned by Faessel Campaign that you’ve seen going up have occurred with the permission of the property owners.
For Vern – it looks like the individual that’s been defacing Acevedo signs along La Palma has continued to do this. On Friday, I noticed a defaced sign on private property heading East on La Palma between State College and Sunkist.
Yeah, some psycho calling himself Rapist Ramos likes to deface our signs on La Palma between State College and Sunkist. We’ve learned to take it in stride, it would be a full-time job replacing them all. At least they’re still legible. Thanks for the tip.
I don’t blame you. I do the same on some weekends. Steve has responded, and he is aware and willing to cooperatively work on solutions. The neighborhood councils need to be re-structured and aligned with the new districts. It didn’t make any sense to have Anaheim Hills in the same council with us and Miraloma.
Two more weeks and the huge signs could be donated to the homeless encampment in the river.
Mr Faessel has also responded to the letter of concerns. I thank all the four candidates for acknowledging the issues of my neighborhood.
An interesting observation that Mr Faessel makes: “As you may be aware, the unraveling of Redevelopment Agencies in California has greatly challenged the ability of cities to partner with developers to incentivize upgrades.”
I believe we have some in-house experts on this issue who could provide some analysis/feedback.
Bemoaning the loss of Redevelopment as an effective tool is par for the course for a dyed-in-the-wool crony capitalist.
Redevelopment was the greatest source of corporate welfare in the history of California. It polluted the real estate market, robbed people of their homes, and added a whole new generation of blight – the same stuff it was supposed to eradicate. It added billions of debt upon unsuspecting property owners and misdirected property tax increment into the hands of city bureaucrats, lawyers and bond salesmen.
“Incentivize” upgrades is Murray-speak for taxpayer bailout/subsidy/underwrite.
I don’t think that the shopping mall was a Redevelopment Agency project. There were talks about it but by then the Agency was terminated.
For some outsiders visiting the mall during the daytime it does not look that bad. Except for the empty Ralph’s store, there are the typical little stores, many of them catering a diverse ethnic clientele. At nighttime homeless sometimes camp out. For the locals, mostly for the old-timers, the deterioration of the mall is noticeable. The fact that the 7-Eleven is the closest store to get some last minute groceries is not what this neighborhood was used to.
I don’t expect the city or govt to solve every problem but this is a major one that requires more than individual or community initiatives. We have tried on minor scale aspects like asking the bar to enclose their trash containers, but because the enclosure was not required at the time they started business, the trash from the bar is at open view, attracting rodents. We contacted the Chamber of Commerce, years ago, to have them asking the bar owners to be good neighbors. No trash enclosure yet.We have shown city officials how the homes next to the large parking lot on the side of the mall experience the smog of the big rigs parked there warming up their engines.
The response from the city is the “market forces” logic. This logic is not applied to the resort giveaways, but it is applied in situations like ours. If no developer is interested in buying off the multiple mall owners, we are stuck with it. The new upscale housing development alongside the Coves may convince the city that there is now a market and help us to upgrade the mall.
“The response from the city is the “market forces” logic. This logic is not applied to the resort giveaways, but it is applied in situations like ours.”
And it is generally the correct logic in both cases. If there are code enforcement issues and policing issues then they should be attended to. A 5th District representative should help with that.
Both Code enforcement and APD are constantly checking the place. The district representative will have to be very creative and willing to defy the ” generally correct logic” in situations like ours. Maybe if a Disney store is set up here, we may get a subsidy to fix the mall.
Whoa, Faessel is bemoaning the loss of RDA? The same RDA that tore out his beloved downtown? Well there is a flip.
Oh well, they have figured out how to use special projects to pay for their crap now. Jordan’s answer to the city’s inability to actually provide basic maintenance is to “accelerate the schedule for undergrounding utilities” which means, dump the cost of roads and sidewalks into undergrounding which is done with bonds paid from utility fees, and if done on fast track our utility rates will crank, and Jordan will have simply transferred the cost onto an essential expense many families already struggle to fund, rather than simply collect and responsibly use the taxes generated in Anaheim but gifted to his pals. I wonder what Faessel thinks of that, given his long-term passion for the usually well-run utilities department.
And then there is the land banking in which other department budgets are used to buy land and then resell it as “surplus.” Oooh, there is a blog post (in my spare time…bwah ha ha)
“Tourists coming to Disneyland and driving into other areas of the city, are surprised to see the other Anaheim. And then if they go to the Hills, they think it is another town.”
And many of the people who live in Anaheim Hills think it is another town, too.
Oh the looks I would get when collecting signatures for the SOAR petition back in the day, and asking if someone is registered to vote in Anaheim, I would get the WORST looks like I had insulted them, NO I am from Anaheim Hills. To which I would say, oh, I have always been curious, who is your Mayor up there and where is your City Hall? I can never seem to find that info…look went from pissed to merely confused.
I hope people are cluing in now, with all the problems that have more people paying attention, and the districting that showed how Hills are their own district of ANAHEIM now, it is a shame we have been pitted against each other, because good people live in the hills too, and are getting shafted like the flatlands. Council convinces the hills they are being drained of needed resources to pay for the aging flatlands and gets flatlands believing the hills get everything, while of course doing the wink-nod thing claiming all parts of the city are equal…when in reality they have funneled the money to their pals in the Resort and hosed all areas of Anaheim!
I know people in Anaheim Hills who watched the cuts into their street DECADES ago for cable TV in its infancy, and their street has NEVER been slurried since, you can see the same cuts, no patch, no slurry cover, no nada. So this idea that the hills are all new and perfect is not correct, they are better visually because of the HOAs that pay for much of the medians, and public spaces, but their infrastructure struggles against age too now, and owners are bailing for south county, leaving homes to become rentals and neighborhoods to become destabilized as they experience their own version of flight of the prior owners.
We are all getting the short end of the leadership stick.
Vern –
There was supposed to be a 5th District Candidate Forum held by UNIDAD tomorrow at 6:00 pm at 716 N. Anna Drive.
Steve Faessel RSVP’d to attend.
He just received the following text, “Hello, Steven Faessel, I’m sending you a message to let you know the 5th District Candidate Forum for October 27, has been Cancelled. Sorry for any inconvenience this has caused you.”
Have you heard anything about the cancellation of this event?
It’s disappointing to hear that it was cancelled.
Thanks,
David
Although your question was not addressed to me, It ‘d have been interesting that the forum had taken place. It’d like to hear how Mr Faessel would’ve explained the benefits of his support for the resort subsidies have in places like Anna Dr. I wonder if Steve has ever visited this neighborhood.
Somewhere I read that Mr Faessel attends church services in the city of Orange, which somehow shows how connected he is with the several constituencies he is trying to represent. Most people around this area go to the local churches, like St Anthony Claret or San Boniface. As my neighborhood is next to Orange, neighbors tend to conduct their household business in the Village of Orange, so it is not surprising that there is stronger connecton or preference towards this neighboring city, except for the utility rates.
Beyond the disagreement about the resort subsidies/giveaways, all the 4 candidates agree that the local problems need to be addressed. Another solution presented by neighbors regarding the Rio Vista mall : upgrades will not fix the problem. No Trader Joes, Starbucks, Sprouts will fix it. The existing donut store has a decent coffee anyway and the Pizza place for years has produced a good pizza. The karaoke bar and the taqueria are well known beyond the neighborhood.
Revitalize that property by converting it to some kind of housing development, cookie cutter homes like the ones built next to the Rio Vista school, condos, etc plus some retail. There is too much non built property used as parking in the back of the building, which is a factor in the neglected character of the mall. There are several positive elements in this area of East Anaheim to attract investors for this property.