Column: Corruption scandal shows that in Anaheim politics, there are no angels

I arrived early to Tuesday’s Anaheim City Council assembly, anticipating to seek out an overflow crowd wielding metaphorical pitchforks and torches. Evidently, so did the powers that be.

Audio audio system squealed exterior City Hall for anybody who arrived late. Police officers stood at consideration or sauntered round, some in bulletproof vests.

It was the primary council assembly since explosive courtroom filings alleged that my hometown resides as much as the nickname my pals and I’ve lengthy known as it as a joke: Anacrime.

On Monday, an FBI affidavit filed in Orange County Superior Court revealed Mayor Harry Sidhu was under federal investigation for public corruption over his function in the city’s attempted sale of Angel Stadium and its parking lots to Los Angeles Angels proprietor Arte Moreno. The FBI alleges that Sidhu leaked insider info to the Angels, deleted proof of his doings, and tried to hinder an Orange County Grand Jury investigation into the affair.

The following day, the FBI filed a separate criminal complaint alleging Todd Ament, the previous president and CEO of the highly effective Anaheim Chamber of Commerce, defrauded a hashish firm that needed to do enterprise in the town, laundered cash meant for the chamber by a public relations agency, then used the agency to trick a monetary lender into financing the mortgage on Ament’s multimillion greenback residence in Big Bear.

The individuals who confirmed up at Anaheim City Hall to speak concerning the brewing scandal rained down righteous thunder as they known as for the resignation of Sidhu. But he wasn’t there. Even the nameplate often affixed to his spot on the dais was MIA.

Resident Mark Richard Daniels stated it was the worst second for Anaheim since the Ku Klux Klan took over the City Council back in the 1920s. Vern Nelson, writer of the irascible Orange Juice Blog, sang a parody of Bob Dylan’s “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” with “Harry Sidhu” swapped for the ultimate two phrases of the title. Jeanine Robbins, member of a homeless advocacy group that unsuccessfully filed a lawsuit to stop the Angel Stadium sale, may barely include her glee.

“You liars, cheats, and thieves sitting up there have mocked us, snickered at us, called us names and have called us liars,” she stated. “Well, look where we are now.”

The headlines had been dangerous sufficient; the small print in the courtroom filings had been soiled.

In wiretapped conversations cited in the paperwork, Ament mentioned with an unnamed political guide whether or not to ask newly elected councilmembers in 2020 to change into “family members” of the “cabal” that runs Anaheim and that already included at the least three different elected officers. Ament then turned snitch and wore a wire to seize Sidhu saying the Angels wanted to donate a “minimum of a million dollars to come up with my election” in trade for his assist pushing by the Angel Stadium sale.

I may go on and on.

The entire factor appears like a B-grade Martin Scorsese gangster flick — I forgot the half the place Ament allegedly helped Sidhu illegally register a yellow helicopter in Arizona. More allegations and costs are anticipated in the approaching weeks.

I don’t assume the FBI goes round alleging in federal courtroom that “the City of Anaheim was tightly controlled by a small cadre of individuals” — after which simply costs two individuals, you understand?

If all the things sticks, this civic scandal may make the 2010 Bell fiasco — which noticed four councilmembers, two city administrators, and the mayor convicted on corruption costs — look as small-fry as highschool ASB. Bell is a tiny metropolis that doesn’t have two skilled sports activities groups, a large conference middle and just a little ol’ place known as Disneyland. But no matter occurs, the 2 instances positively, sadly share one thing in frequent:

Few individuals had been paying consideration when all of the malfeasance was occurring.

Most of the seats in the course of the Anaheim council assembly I attended did find yourself getting crammed — however it was the standard assortment of lobbyists, gadflies, native activists, and blissful, mysterious males in sharp fits. More individuals confirmed as much as rejoice Anaheim designating their homes as historic buildings than to decry Sidhu’s actions.

Those who did broach the scandal introduced their righteous anger A-game. But they had been the identical largely white, largely middle-aged activists who’ve proven as much as council conferences for the 20 years I’ve reported on Anaheim.

Where was everybody else?

This apathy made a scenario the place a selected few may snake their means into a lot affect not simply potential, however inevitable. Like Bell, Anaheim is a working-class metropolis whose residents have extra urgent issues than civics. The 2020 U.S. census estimated whites make up simply 24% of the inhabitants, with Latinos 53%. Nearly 60% of Anaheimers converse a language aside from English at residence. It’s a recipe for exploitation that companies have taken benefit of for many years.

The Angels stadium deal — and let’s be clear, there have been no allegations of wrongdoing by the staff itself — is getting probably the most consideration proper now, however probably the most infamous instance stays Disney. It doesn’t determine into any of the present federal allegations, however that hasn’t stopped the Mouse from lengthy getting its means in Anaheim. Former company officials have long boasted how they might take “the city fathers” on journeys again in the Sixties and Seventies to play golf and get drunk. When it realized that wasn’t significantly moral, Disney as a substitute used hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in marketing campaign donations to create councils to their liking.

The consequence has been sweetheart deal after sweetheart deal. Like the one that had Anaheim assemble one of many world’s greatest parking garages close to Disneyland in the late Nineteen Nineties at a price of over $100 million, then letting Disney maintain tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in annual income from it whereas the company pays just a buck a year to lease. Or when the City Council handed a decision in 2015 that banned any gate taxes in Disney’s theme parks for 45 years and compelled the town to reimburse Disney in the occasion one was ever handed.

Anaheim is a metropolis that has an ugly, barely used, multimillion-dollar transportation hub as a result of former Assembly Speaker Curt Pringle pushed for it in his twin capability as Anaheim’s mayor and chair of the California High-Speed Rail Authority again in the 2000s. As mayor professional tem again in 2009, Sidhu voted to give a luxury hotel developer a $76-million-plus tax break; as mayor, the council awarded a $425,000 no-bid contract to the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce at his request barely a 12 months after it spent practically a quarter-million {dollars} to assist him win the mayor’s seat in 2018.

Even the implementation of district elections in 2016, made possible by Latino activists last decade via a civil lawsuit to extend range on the council and hopefully examine company energy in the town, did little to cease this cesspool of cronyism. Will the present allegations lastly get up my fellow Anacrimers?

After public feedback, I went exterior to meet up with activists.

Some held up banners that learn “Resign Disgraced Sidhu” and “Resign Dirty Harry” and posed for images. Looking on was Cynthia Ward, a longtime Anaheim watcher who unsuccessfully ran towards Sidhu in 2018.

“We show up meeting after meeting, and hope more people pay attention, but they just don’t,” she stated.

A sliver of hope of what might be got here in the type of Rosa Dominguez and her 26-year-old son, Alex.

The two confirmed as much as the council assembly after listening to concerning the allegations and had been prepared to inform everybody they knew.

“A lot of people of my generation, they’ll say, ‘It’s just local politics, who cares?’ and just move on,” Alex stated. “But what was told today was outrageous, and I think if people learn, they’ll start to come.”

In Spanish, his mom added: “That’s why you need to keep talking.”