Anaheim Blog

After a long and tumultuous meeting last night (and there’s much more to share from the night’s events in other posts), the Anaheim City Council voted 4-1 (Mayor Tom Tait dissenting) to approve Councilwoman Kris Murray’s motion to move immediately to residency-based districts while retaining the at-large voting system, and in favor of asking the voters to weigh in on expanding the council to six members.

Murray’s adopted motion directs staff to bring back an ordinance creating residency-based districts for a vote at the July 2 council meeting. This effectively creates a system like that used by Newport beach, Santa Ana and the Orange Unified School District (the last of which includes Anaheim Hills)

Staff was also directed to bring back for a vote two charter amendments to be placed on the June 2014 ballot:

- One asking the voters to approve or reject the system of at-large election of councilmembers from residency-based districts.

- A second charter amendment asking voters to approve or reject expanding the council to 6 members.

Prior to that vote, the City Council voted 3-2 (Tait and Councilmember Jordan Brandman in the minority) to reject  placing on the ballot proposed charter amendments asking voters if they want single-member council districts, and 6 or 8 councilmembers (plus a consolidated version proposed by Mayor Tait that included establishing a districting commission).

More to come on all this.

I’m at the Anaheim City Council meeting, where they are considering various proposed ballot measure regarding the size of the council and the method of electing it.

The most striking thing about tonight is the sheer thuggishness of the crowd assembled by OCCORD and UNITE-HERE. I’ve been around politics a long time, and I have rarely seen not only such mob conduct, but mob conduct that is so obviously being condoned and encouraged by the leadership of these organizations. It is a clear attempt to intimidate others from expressing opinions not sanction by this militant union and it’s off-shoot non-profit.

It’s been a chaotic council meeting, with the rules of public conduct changing from minute to minute. The union mob just feeds on the disorder.

UPDATE: Joanna Sosa from “Take Back Anaheim” stopped just short of calling for an armed uprising.

UPDATE: the director of Latino Health Access is calling for single-member districts, and think they will lead to improved public health. I’m amazed at the magical properties its advocates ascribe to single-member districts. She said she works in Santa Ana and that at-large districts don’t work in Santa Ana. She said single-member districts would ensure those districts receive services.

She might want to look at the example of Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido, who is relentlessly being isolated by his council colleagues. Guess what would happen in an Anaheim of single-member districts? A councilmember who fell afoul of his/her colleagues – as Pulido has with his – would suffer the same fate. Or, I should say, their constituents would pay the price – and the rest of the council would suffer no repercussions at the polls.

UPDATE: one of the OCCORD speakers is complaining they aren’t being heard, which is probably because her OCCORD/UNITE-HERE comrades have been making so much noise in the council chamber.

She also complained that no one told her she needed to sign a “time card” to speak – notwithstanding that the issue of “time cards” (speaker cards) has been brought up repeatedly.

UPDATE: one of the comical aspects of tonight’s meeting is the assertions of a number of the OCCORD/UNITE-HERE speakers denying they are being coordinated by those groups, while simultaneously the big UNITE-HERE staffer signals them which message placard to hold up.

UPDATE: Jose Moreno is up and saying, among other things, that the lawsuit in which he is lead plaintiff was filed because councilmembers wouldn’t (he says) “engage” with him on the issue. The question that comes to my mind is: if they had engaged with him and still declined to support single-member council districts, would he NOT have filed the lawsuit? Or is the real issue that he did not receive the answer he wanted?

UPDATE: Jose Moreno just told Kris Murray that because just three Latinos have been elected to the city council in 150 years, then he considers his vote to have been “diluted.” The inescapable logic of that statement is that he believes representation is a function of race – otherwise why would his vote have been diluted?

Then, a few seconds later, he said the opposite: that Latinos having adequate representation on the council doesn’t mean they have to elect Latinos.

Which is it?

Moreno then said that in the various school districts serving Anaheim, he pointed out he’s the only “Spanish-speaking, Spanish-dominant, Latino-surnamed” on their elected boards.

Does anyone else find that zoological approach to classifying people by race and language unsettling?

Moreno then challenged Lucille Kring and Gail Eastman when they said that a trustee on one of those boards by the name of Trujillo was a Latina. “Are you certain of that? Are you certain of that?” he asked them repeatedly. The Ethnicity Police are in the house!

UPDATE: The Council just voted 3-2 against the proposed charter amendments (Tait and Brandman voting “yes”). The OCCORD/UNITE-hERE remnant erupted in a chant of “no fake districts, no more delays!” and marched out of the chamber and out to the courtyard. As I type, OCCORD honcho Eric Altman is exhorting the comrades.

Now they’re yelling “We’ll be back” – although I think I am the only one who heard them.

UPDATE: Kris Murray is moving an alternate motion (if I heard it right) to place on the June 2014 ballot a measure to increase the council to six members, elected at-large from residency-based districts.

The question was called and the vote was 4-1 in favor (Mayor Tait being the lone dissent).

Assemblyman Don Wagner sent this letter, suffused with common sense and clear thinking,  to Mayor Tom Tait and the Anaheim City Council, urging them to reject single-member council districts:

June 11, 2013

Dear Mayor Tait and Council Members,

I write to express my reservations about the plan before you tonight with respect to district voting.

My principal concern is that district rather than at large voting might actually divide rather than unite a community. Having served previously in local government, I know well the importance of all members of a governing body having a direct stake in the decisions they take, a stake created by a direct relationship with the voters. To the extent that relationship is weakened, neighborhoods or discrete communities can be pitted against each other and special interests can more easily achieve functional control over a governing body. That is obviously not a desirable result. Moreover, the damage this can do is not outweighed by the asserted benefits of district voting.

I frankly doubt that potentially lessening an Anaheim council member’s ties to the whole of Anaheim — indeed, potentially rendering those ties irrelevant to election to office — is a move in the right direction. Accordingly, I urge the council to reject any such districting proposal. 

Thank you for your consideration, and thank you for your service to our shared constituents. 

Sincerely,

Don

Donald P. Wagner

Assembly Member, 68th District  

Kudos to Assemblyman Don Wagner, one of the rare elected Republicans in Orange County who recognizes what the push for single-member council districts is all about and is speaking up.

Overlooked in all the hubbub over ballot initiatives and council districts at tonight’s Anaheim City Council meeting is a proposed resolution on the consent calendar which, if approved, would put the city council on record as opposing the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in the Citizens United case.

Citizens United struck down federal campaign finance law prohibiting independent expenditure campaigns by corporations and unions, and ruled that the federal government cannot limit spending by corporations, unions, associations or individuals to influence elections. Citizens United was a resounding affirmation of our constitution right to free political speech.

The resolution states that Citizens United was bad for good government and calls for more federal regulations and restrictions on campaign contributions and spending — up to and including amending the U.S. Constitution.

Campaign finance “reform” is The God That Failed. It is based on the false premise that money in  politics is inherently bad and that they path to good, clean government is by having the government tightly regulate when, how and how much we can contribute in order to influence who we elected to govern us.

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As I’ve noted, it seems the unions and their allies will make any claim in their struggle against the capitalists running The Honda Center.

Three weeks ago, the OC Labor Federation (echoed by UNITE-HERE and the gullible Cynthia Ward) falsely claimed The Honda Center was laying off Aramark workers and bringing food service in-house in order to claim the Anaheim Enterprise Zone job tax credit. The Voice of OC and other media recklessly echoed the claim, which could have been easily proven false with a phone call to The Honda Center.

I saw this doozy on the OCCORD Facebook page:

Huh? OCCORD  is implying the EZ is somehow responsible for the lay-offs. That claim makes as much logical sense as saying, “The city-owned Honda Center is located in Anaheim’s enterprise zone, and last week Fleetwood Mac played at the Honda Center!”, implying that the former cause the latter.

Anaheim Mayor Pro Tem Gail Eastman

The OC Register reports some rules of decorum will be applied Anaheim City Council meetings starting this Tuesday:

The recent spate of unruly behavior during council meetings prompted city officials to establish new decorum rules, which start at Tuesday’s meeting.

“Part of democracy is attending a council meeting and decorum is a part of that,” City Councilwoman Gail Eastman said. “I think that the better we can educate our citizens, the more productive meetings we’ll have.”

Pamphlets printed in English and Spanish will be distributed during council meetings, reminding attendees that they may be asked to sit down or leave the room for using “personal, threatening, abusive, slanderous or profane remarks to any member of the Council, staff or general public.”

Those refusing to leave the meeting peacefully or voluntarily may be removed by a police officer and face misdemeanor charges of disruption, according to the City Charter.

The taunts reached a vociferous crescendo May 14, when the Anaheim City Council voted 4-1 to approve a $158 million tax break for the developer of two luxury hotels at the GardenWalk outdoor mall.

Several people shouted over the council’s lengthy debate. Others mimicked council members who they did not agree with.

Good. Those a totally reasonable rules. Filling out speaker cards won’t impede anyone’s right to speak and will obviate the need to people to stand in the aisle waiting for their opportunity. I’d be curious to hear from anyone who believes the rule against being threatening  abusive, profane or slanderous limits their ability to speak their minds?

The big test will be when the odious William Fitzgerald takes to the podium on Tuesday. I doubt he’ll be able to open his mouth for more than 10 seconds without violating the new rules.

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