Mayor Tait Sets the Table for November: Anaheim’s Election Will Be About Insane Subsidies

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Disneyland Getaway (with murder)

Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait produced a letter to the editor in Sunday’s Register.  As the entire letter is newsworthy, we feel justified (after having given the Orange Lady a two-day head start) in reprinting the whole thing.  It was entitled “Here we go again: Another Anaheim Tax Giveaway.”

In the coming weeks, the Anaheim city council is expected to vote on yet another tax subsidy of $144 million for a so-called “luxury” hotel right across the street from the entrance to Disneyland, and then another hotel subsidy later in the summer. I will be voting against these subsidies because I believe they are unnecessary, they put the city on a dangerous path financially and they are a reckless giveaway of taxpayer dollars.

Back in 2013, when the Anaheim city council majority voted to give $158 million to a politically-connected hotel developer at the Gardenwalk properties (I voted against this action), we were told we needed to help shield the developer from the effects of the economic recession, and that if we didn’t subsidize this hotel “it would not be built.” In the 3 years since then, we have approved and celebrated the opening of 17 hotels in Anaheim, all without any subsidies. Our hotels serve the millions of tourists who come to our resort area each year, with beautiful amenities, spas, dining and entertainment.

By all accounts, the hotel market is thriving. Hotel experts suggest it’s the strongest hotel market in 25 years: Record revenues and record profits, combined with today’s low interest rates and a booming tourism industry create ideal conditions for investors.

So why does the city see fit to give a handout to a luxury hotel developer, to the tune of $144 million? We certainly can’t argue that nothing will be built without a subsidy, as the last three years have shown. You will hear that Anaheim needs and even “deserves” a luxury hotel. I would argue that, in these market conditions, if it makes sense to build a luxury hotel, then someone will build it with their own money.

Normally, a city takes its hotel bed tax revenues and places them in the general fund to improve and increase city services to residents, like better parks programs, graffiti-removal services and more police officers. Instead, our city is about to take 70 percent of this hotel’s tax revenues and write a check to a hotel developer for over $7 million a year, for the next 20 years. (The remaining 20 percent goes to a bond payment owed to fund the Resort district improvements, and only 10 percent can be used for general fund purposes.)

These tax revenues rightfully belong to the people of Anaheim; instead, the city council is poised to give it to a hotelier that doesn’t need the incentive at all. The value of the proposed luxury hotel when it’s completed will far exceed the cost of construction, resulting in a large profit to the developer. So even if one agrees with the concept of subsidizing luxury hotels to help a project financially pencil, it doesn’t make sense in this instance. Any tax subsidy from the city only adds additional windfall profit to the developer… to the tune of $144 million.

This project makes ample profit without any subsidy. So, why would we do this? The answer is simple…we shouldn’t. The $144 million is desperately needed to pay for essential city services and to pay down pension obligations for our first responders and other employees who depend on these funds for their retirement security. If the council votes for another developer giveaway, then future leaders will be forced to reduce services and put pensions at risk.

The vast majority of businesses in Anaheim are not subsidized by the city. They thrive – or don’t – based on a variety of factors: The demand for their product or service, the location of their business, their own private investment and their hard work. The city plays a role in their success by properly providing paved streets and sidewalks, police and fire response and quality of life services like nearby parks.

Giving away taxpayer money to developers and their well paid lobbyists is called crony capitalism, and is bad public policy. Rather, the best way to build our city economy is to create a level playing field by keeping taxes fair and equal across the board, and using those tax revenues for the benefit of the residents and businesses who call Anaheim home.

Tom Tait is mayor of Anaheim

My view is that Mayor Tait is, if anything, being overly kind here about this psychotic waste of millions of dollars that Anaheim will desperately need in the future.

I don’t really blame the hotelier here. If you have a $75 million of expected profit on a new hotel — located right across from Disneyland, naturally — and then the City Council comes by and says “Hey, we’d like to give you another umpty-ump tens of millions of dollars just so that we’ll look ideologically consistent and won’t be seen as ‘picking winners and losers,'” your stockholders probably want you to take it. It’s the responsibility of the City Council and the City Manager, and maybe the city attorney as well, to make sure that nothing this absurd ever happens.

If Jordan Brandman and Lucille Kring support this insanity, they should be cut down this November at the ballot box — even if it were for this reason alone. As for the quarterback of giveaways, Kris Murray, she should never hold public office — or any other position of public authority — again.  Anyone who wondered what the main issue in the election will be (aside from the travesty of the Council’s position made up on the spot by Jordan “Joffrey” Brandman regarding Short-Term Rentals) — you’ve found your answer.  Does Anaheim want a Council that is THIS STUPID AND THIS DISRESPECTFUL OF FUTURE GENERATIONS OF ANAHEIMERS — or does it want politicians with good hearts and common sense.

Thanks as usual to Mayor Tait for bringing yet another travesty to public attention, while there is still time to prevent it – if the public gets upset enough at this kind of rip off. Is “NO MORE HUGE GIVEAWAYS” really THAT hard to understand?

We expect to have more of this story soon.  Public comments will be boiling Tuesday night!


About Greg Diamond

Somewhat verbose attorney, semi-disabled and semi-retired, residing in northwest Brea. Occasionally ran for office against jerks who otherwise would have gonr unopposed. Got 45% of the vote against Bob Huff for State Senate in 2012; Josh Newman then won the seat in 2016. In 2014 became the first attorney to challenge OCDA Tony Rackauckas since 2002; Todd Spitzer then won that seat in 2018. Every time he's run against some rotten incumbent, the *next* person to challenge them wins! He's OK with that. Corrupt party hacks hate him. He's OK with that too. He does advise some local campaigns informally and (so far) without compensation. (If that last bit changes, he will declare the interest.) His daughter is a professional campaign treasurer. He doesn't usually know whom she and her firm represent. Whether they do so never influences his endorsements or coverage. (He does have his own strong opinions.) But when he does check campaign finance forms, he is often happily surprised to learn that good candidates he respects often DO hire her firm. (Maybe bad ones are scared off by his relationship with her, but they needn't be.)