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Who was that dapper, bald gentleman at the right end of the dais Tuesday night?
It couldn’t have been (could it have?) Steve Faessel, the 5th-district council candidate that Disney, SOAR, the public safety and building trade unions, the entire mechanism of Anaheim’s kleptocracy, put their mega-bucks behind, while Mayor Tait and other of us crony-capitalism opponents labored hard to defeat him? It couldn’t have been the same guy who actually did lobby for the outrageous hotel giveaways last July, who sat mute and unobjecting through dozens of pre-12/20/2016 council meetings while the kleptos did their worst? The man who did Pringle’s work defeating the Ball Basin Power Plant, and boasted of always keeping a bottle of Curt’s favorite wine on hand?
I merely ask because the Faessel-looking cat we saw last Tuesday talked and voted like a real straight-shooter, listening hard, raising genuine concerns and asking for clarifications, visibly striving to do the right thing, and in every instance (unless I missed something) ended up voting with the Tait/Moreno good-government majority, even ruefully observing at one point, “I don’t think I’m making any friends on the other end of the dais,” where sat Kris Murray and Lucille Kring, grinding their teeth and sputtering.
‘Cuz you know, listening, asking questions, thinking hard – this is not the way an Anaheim Klepto behaves. We are accustomed to seeing Murray, Kring, Brandman, Eastman, Sidhu, walking into meetings with their minds all made up, their instructions digested, their talking points memorized, impervious to any argument from public or colleague.
Team Anaheim. Who’s Manchurian now?
If it turns out that, indeed, that man on the right of the dais was Steve Faessel, then I think we can say that our new good-government majority is not 4-3 as we had thought, but 5-2. And one side-effect of that is it makes looming 2018 seem a lot less scary. It was Comedy Gold to watch Kris and Lucille isolated over at the Kids’ End of the Table, trying to re-write history, hypocritically protesting the majority’s “meanness,” and kicking the bottoms of their desks.
But geez – look at the time! My intent is to walk you through the high points of December 20’s marathon (till 1:30 AM) meeting. First off, though, I’d better clarify one thing:
Labors of Hercules #5: Cleaning the Augean Stables.
Now, just in case – just in case – you are somehow not a person who grew up fascinated with Ancient Greek mythology, let me fill you in on the Augean Stables, the fifth of Hercules’ twelve labors. As punishment for a terrible crime he’d committed while insane, this buff demigod was condemned to work for a petty tyrant for twelve years, who ordered him to perform twelve ostensibly impossible “labors.”
The fifth of these, which has stuck in many of our minds as an often apt metaphor for situations we encounter, was to clean out the stables of the notorious slob King Augeas – the Augean stables, which held a thousand cattle and hadn’t been cleaned out in thirty years – picture a World Of Shit. 
Plus which, Hercules had to clean them out in ONE DAY. As resourceful as he was strong, our hero pulled off this feat by re-routing two rivers through the stables.
The epic December 20 meeting is much better understood through this prism. At least half of what was agendized by the new People’s Council could be categorized under “cleaning out the Augean Stables.” See also, “draining the swamp,” and “drinking from a fire hose.”
1. Rescinding the scandalous and hugely unpopular “Hotel Incentive Program,” which has cost the city $700 million in future revenues to supposedly incentivize the building of luxury hotels that would have been built anyway (and which probably also cost the kleptocrats their majority, even as it defined them.)
Lucille attempted to grab this issue pre-emptively the week before, with the spin, “This program has done its work spectacularly and we don’t need it any more.” Kris joined in on that spin on the 20th. The vote was unanimous to rescind, but Tom and Jose were having none of the spin, driving home how disastrous it will be for future councils to have to write monthly checks of $35 or $40 million to wealthy hoteliers including Disney. Cynthia Ward responded to the klepto-spin in VOC comments:
The hospitality industry is one of the most well researched businesses on earth. They all know what the others in their market are doing, they adjust room rates as a block based on demand, etc. and they absolutely know how many hotel rooms for each type of price level and amenity offering can be sustained in any given market. A study showed that Anaheim can sustain XX number of 4 star rooms, and that is where the Specific Plan for the Resort set the limit on capacity.
So essentially the ONLY 4-star rooms ALLOWED, based on the number of 4 star rooms that are expected to be supported by the market, have now been allocated to subsidized developers. There is no reason to have the policy because it DID already do its job, Anaheim has now maxed out (on paper) the 4 star hotels sustainable in our market, and with no more rooms to approve there is no more reason to offer the subsidy.
Of course nobody wants to discuss the fact that MOST (not all) of the rooms being subsidized were ALREADY OBLIGATED TO BE BUILT TO THAT STANDARD, based on the SAME Specific Plans for the Resort Disney insists are still in force 25 years later, in order to rely on them for their own development of the parking structure and pedestrian bridge they claim is already entitled… so we “incentivized” NOTHING!
Which leaves this question: Do we have a case of professional negligence on the part of staff, who failed to even READ the documents they were working from? Or did staff/Council KNOW the details in the Specific Plans, and move forward anyway, which sure smells to me like fraud? And are contracts that were the result of fraud or professional negligence legally enforceable? In fact, if someone wanted to take action in any way related to that question, how comfortable are those Resort hoteliers and/or staff and/or Council about being asked what they knew and when they knew it?
2. Discontinuing the $300 million Disney Streetcar Project – at nearly $100 million per mile, the most expensive streetcar in history. Agendized by Denise. Even though the OCTA had given this ridiculous and corrupt project the shaft in June, the Klepto majority then voted to STILL waste money STUDYING the boondoggle, in fond hopes that it could someday be revived or something. (Picture spending tens of thousands a year of taxpayer money keeping your head cryogenically frozen.)
Curiously Faessel seemed torn and reluctant, fretting that if OCTA ever came up with any other “fixed-guideway” plan to get tourists from ARTIC to their final destination, or alternatively up Harbor from Santa Ana through Garden Grove, they may say to themselves “Nah, Anaheim doesn’t want that.” Tom finally impressed upon him that that’s right, we don’t want that – whether going down the middle of Katella or up the middle of Harbor, ANY conceivable fixed-guideway project would worsen our already-bad traffic. So, 5-2, the new People’s Council voted to say NO permanently and finally with no mixed signals, dead-enders Lucille and Kris dissenting.
3. Terminating Sponsorship Agreements for various events with the (ultra-politicized) Anaheim Chamber of Commerce. Many thought of this as revenge, as the Chamber has opposed and attacked the Mayor at every turn, and been the main voice for the most wasteful and irresponsible acts of crony capitalism, from the hotel subsidies to the Angels Stadium giveaway. And maybe there was a bit of punishment or revenge in the mix, but the fact remains: such booming businesses (up to and including Disney) shouldn’t need government assistance to put on their various annual events.
Kris chewed out the majority as being unfriendly to the “business community” – her euphemism for the Chamber, which (like Huntington Beach’s Chamber) advocates only for the very largest businesses in town. Liberal Jose responded, sounding exactly like Conservative Tom, that these “economic engines” being as successful as they are shouldn’t and DON’T NEED $135,000 a year of public money to promote themselves. Somehow the vote turned out unanimous to stop this corporate welfare.
4. Showing brand-new city attorney Arturo Fierro the door. The nearly-final indignity (the penultimate one actually) perpetrated by the outgoing klepto majority was to install – against public and mayoral outrage – a new City Attorney ONE WEEK before the election, the first by-districts election … and to make it worse, this attorney is the father of defeated councilman Brandman’s aide and campaign manager. It stank from way over here. Tom moved to remove this fellow immediately – nothing to do with his performance or qualifications, just a matter of principle.
Faessel was apologetic to the man, but eloquent in his ethical objections to how he achieved his position. “I’m sorry, you arrived here under a cloud, and to me, you will always have this cloud over you.” Kris and Lucille HOWLED (there’s SOMETHING going on here, why they needed him there so bad!) The majority is cruel and inhumane, to do this to this poor man (whose name Lucille couldn’t pronounce) before even giving him a chance to show what a good job he could do! And right before Christmas on top of that! You would think the majority was stealing candy from babies and then throwing those babies under the bus … right before Christmas too.
Jose smoothly turned it around on them – “Personally, I RESENT the fact that you forced us to do this, that you left this on our laps. We have no choice.” Some have observed that the two hysterical women, during that discussion, spoke A GREAT DEAL of things that went on in closed session; we will study the tapes and determine what trouble they could be in. In any case – Fierro gone, 5-2, and former interim City Attorney Kristin Peletier back in the saddle for now.
5. Restoring the integrity of the Mayor’s office. This reversal of a pair of petty, punitive anti-Tait actions from 2013 was a fiesta of recriminations and revisionism which really called for much more popcorn than we had on hand:
5a. Restoring the Mayor’s agendizing power. I don’t feel like getting into all the fine details of this here; the revisionist account of this controversy is here on the kleptoblog, natch, and we heard it live at length from Kris and Lucille, but nobody really believes it. The fact is, the Mayor had been able, for many years, to put an item onto the agenda up to 3 days before the meeting, and the majority – at the time, Brandman, Eastman, Murray and Kring – called an emergency Monday morning meeting in September of 2013 to strip that power away from Tom. I remember that meeting well, it was hard to forget: there was a finger-puppet show elucidating the issues at hand.
Rather than rehash the stale arguments, let’s dig some vintage Lucille: the meeting HAD to be on Monday morning because her father-in-law had died and she had to go to the funeral. “Oh, woe is me, I had a death in the family.” Bullshit, it did not HAVE to be an unusual, barely-noticed “emergency” meeting at all. This was only an emergency to THEM, and purely intended to punish and prevent Tom from speaking out in public about their plan to give away the Angels Stadium parking lot to Arte Moreno for $1 a year for 66 years. Things are back to normal now, on a 6-1 vote – only Kris could pretend the change was justifiable.
5b. Restoring the pay and hours of his policy aide Mishal Montgomery. Another punitive and unjustifiable action the majority took (that same year I think) against the Mayor and his hard-working policy aide Mishal – they cut her pay by $40,000 a year, forcing her to work part-time and take another job. Revisionist version here.
I agree that the optics of Denise Barnes agendizing this restoration for the benefit of her patron Mishal was regrettable – the Mayor should have done it himself. Apparently Denise got a rash of shit over it from her constituents and therefore spent a good deal of time looking into the details of the controversy… and then decided to not only restore the $40,000 in pay but make Mishal’s position officially full-time, requiring a new classified position, which had to be continued to next meeting. All but Kris and Lucille agreed, 5-2. But to understand the differences between what Mishal does versus a typical klepto aide: Mishal has a degree in public policy; Kris uses Arianna Barrios, a public relations person, to help her sell her misdeeds to the public.
6. Who or What is a “Welcoming Anaheim?”
Jose’s proposal, Dec. 13, to “form a Mayoral task force … [for] a new community integration initiative entitled Welcoming Anaheim” had a lot of us on all sides puzzled for a week, coming as it did at the same time as Santa Ana declaring itself a Sanctuary City (in which local authorities would be forbidden from co-operating with Federal immigration authorities.) Was “Welcoming Anaheim” a euphemism to help Sanctuary City Anaheim go down easier with white and Republican voters? Was it a sneaky backdoor way to lay the groundwork for a Sanctuary City? Or was it as some claim a “Sanctuary City Lite” with feelgood aspects that still leave undocumented immigrants vulnerable? Jose replies to ALL of us smartasses, “Just look at the website – WelcomingAmerica.org.”
And so I did. This turns out to be a national program, fighting xenophobia, that cities and states throughout the nation have recently signed on to. And it seems to be more geared toward welcoming refugees from scary places like Syria than anything to do with immigration from Mexico. In the website’s words,
Welcoming America leads a movement of inclusive communities becoming more prosperous by making everyone feel like they belong. We believe that all people, including immigrants, are valued contributors who are vital to the success of our communities and shared future.
Jose tried to impress upon his colleagues, who are perhaps not as artistic/intellectual as he, that every community does this in its own way, figures out exactly what aspects of “Welcoming” are right for them, feel their way toward their own version of it.
The four men on Council voted to move forward cautiously but bravely with this work in progress. Lucille and Kris abstained, understandably pleading confusion. Denise actually voted no, having gotten numerous calls from constituents terrified of having helped elect a council that would enact Sanctuary City status. Remember, Denise counts among her constituency a great number of folks like Esther Wallace and Amanda Edinger, whose hair the very idea of Sanctuary ignites with unquenchable flames. At some point they may realize this is not that.
A Moratorium on Permit Parking, and a Call for More Smiles
The one part of the meeting where all seven members were able to discuss an issue respectfully, maturely and constructively was … maybe not as entertaining, but actually refreshing: that was when three new parking-permit areas came up for approval, mere hours after several public speakers complaining that permit parking in adjacent neighborhoods was just exacerbating their own parking problems, while also leaving the irritating spectacle of bare empty streets through the daytime hours in the lucky precincts.
An intractable problem perhaps, but the council unanimously agreed to attempt tracting it, in a “global” way, putting a temporary moratorium on any new permit parking (while approving the three at hand, as people had put so much work into getting them approved.) No more park-a-mole. Let’s see these seven figure out something useful together!
On that magnanimous note, let me clarify to Kris and Lucille something my pal Brian Chuchua said in public comments: “It’s nice to finally see five smiling faces up there, I hope to soon see seven.” He was not, as you apparently assumed, expressing impatience for you two to be replaced. (Necessarily.) He was just wanting to see you smile! Why so glum and angry? Just start listening to your constituents and actually representing them – it’s not too late, you’ve got 2/4 more years!
Unfinished Business: January 10!
With ALL that mishegas and desmadre, it was inevitable that some important business would have to be postponed. The most regrettable and dangerous postponement was the replacement of former Councilman Jordan Brandman on the OC Water District. He has been a destructive force there, representing the crooks of Poseidon and Cadiz over the interests of Anaheim ratepayers and the environment, and who knows what damage he could do while still ensconced there – there’s another OCWD meeting on Jan 4 where anything could happen! He has to go on January 10 (so he can plot his next mischief – running for Supervisor against Pringle’s other favorite Jennifer Fitzgerald? Hmmm…. tall order.)
It’s well known that this blog supports David Zenger for the position. The tradition is to give the post to a councilmember, and either James or Jose would be capable and willing. But we really think that tradition is obsolete and dumb, and Anaheim water users should be represented by an independent citizen with the expertise and TIME to pore through all the documents and issues and represent us properly and honestly. There are no doubt other acceptable experts out there as well. The important thing is to immediately get Jordan off before he can cause more harm.
This needs to be done January 10, and even THAT’s not the main thing – we have to do something immediately to protect our homeless through these winter months. Just the day after that Dec 20 meeting, as we revealed here, the APD seized the tents and tarps from at least seven peaceful homeless folks in West Anaheim, in the middle of a cold rainy day – the first of several. Fair warning, the Council will be mobbed on Jan 10 with us folks who care, demanding such humane measures as:
- Rescind the camping ordinance; or AT LEAST stop enforcing it during the winter months, so these people can have their tents, tarps and sleeping bags.
- Create one or preferably more “safe spaces” for them to camp (at least for the winter) – possibilities include the “Karcher Property” in District 3, and the southeast corner of Beach and Lincoln in District 1.
- Order the police to stop seizing the property of homeless people, unless it is left unsupervised for a certain number of hours – that is supposed to be the rule, but our “homeless outreach team” has been seizing property right out of their hands!
- Discuss creating temporary compounds of small modular homes, possibly in the spaces described above.
- And contract with a mobile restroom/shower service as many other humane cities have. This WAS the City of Kindness, wasn’t it, or did our GPS malfunction?
See you all on the 10th!
Great article Mr. Nelson. I fell asleep around 11:00 on the night of City Council meeting and did not get to hear the outcome on some of these decisions. We can tell you put a lot of work and a lot of late night hours into these details. Thank you.
I agree with your comments on Faessel. Faessel is his own man. Maybe we are so used to seeing our City get blatantly sold out with Murray, Kring and Brandenman that we just automatically assume anyone who gets political money is somehow sold out across the board on everything.
One additional thing and it was small, but he wanted to even see that women’s letter that Kring sent out regarding the parking situation and Faessel used that as a platform to tell all of us citizen’s that he would look at anything they gave him and encouraged it while pointing out that the staff should not try to inhibit people from giving documents to the Council.
I am going to have to apologize to Faessel that I did not vote for him because I bought into all the hype tying him into Murray and Kring. Fortunately for me he seems to be the kind of guy that would be understanding about that.
Last thing about Faessel is that he seems like he knows procedure under which the council is to operate. I saw him a couple times step back and get procedural clarification and each time he seemed right at least from what I could tell. Even if he votes against the “New Majority” down the line he seems like he is going to explain himself in a transparent way.
Montgomery deserves whatever they decide to give her (and more). I doubt if Barnes came up with the idea on her own but Barnes did not hand out anything special because she raised the issue for the agenda first (welcome to politics). We must keep Montgomery at whatever cost.
Moreno showed that night he is a Prince of the People, all the people. I am hoping he continues to take a leading role on the council like he did the first night. I am hoping he feels confident enough to lead the council in the direction he deems necessary, in his wisdom.
Last thing, the Mayor final got his much due and long awaited majority. He had the patience to wait this out for us and it is well deserved. He should never have to buy a cup of coffee in this City again. He carried the City on his back for so long. God only knows where we would be without him.
Thanks for the kind words and keen observations. Don’t be sorry if you voted for my wife though – she woulda been great too!
The Disney people probably threw up in their mouths just a little bit watching Faessel. And for petes sake get that Jordan off the damn ocwd like yesterday.
Debbie Cook is pretty sure the OCWD is off till February; I hope she’s right.
Good job, Vern. Thanks for writing up this recap. It was a looooong meeting. But as you shared, there is a lot of crap to wash out of the stables. I’ve heard people mention undoing the last 6 years’ of damage, but keep in mind Pringle was openly scheming for the streetcar scenario as early as 2006 (maybe working on the layout even before that?) and it is painfully obvious that the streetcar was nothing more than an excuse to underwrite a bunch of Disney’s infrastructure projects with public funds.
BUT– I think there was additional info hidden in the streetcar discussion that needs investigation. Remember, in August the Council majority voted to let Hill International continue their EIR docs for the streetcar, using ATID money. Then in September the Council voted to turn over docs to OCTA while asking OCTA to please consider Anaheim’s views (which one assumes are reflected in the docs being turned over.) Tuesday the City Manager continued his biased wonk-speak obfuscation by twisting the meaning of “done” in terms of paperwork completed and turned over to OCTA. For instance, he claimed the streetcar project is now under OCTA oversight (true) and that he has no information regarding OCTA contracting with Hill International to complete the EIR docs (also true to my belief) because there is no REASON for OCTA to contract with Hill International, the ATID money was already approved for such purpose and the CMO ordered to see it through! Nothing I see in the September agreement with OCTA prevents the ATID funds from completing the Hill International EIR, and THEN the City turning over those docs to OCTA. If that happens, we may SKIP the process of public review of the docs and a public meeting for the Council to approve or rebuke the EIR docs, and it looks like they go right to OCTA to be “considered” in the future if the opportunity arises. So when Councilmember Faessel talks about maybe some form of a streetcar in Anaheim’s future to connect the OC streetcar to the Resort, do not take that lightly. While Disney is now paying for SOME of their own infrastructure that had been previously pumped into the streetcar as a “public works” project, God knows what they can tweak into a “new and improved” project after Tait leaves office. And as we all applaud Faessel’s extreme diplomacy, his demeanor SCREAMS that he is salivating all over the Mayor’s seat with an eye to 2018. He showed WAY more backbone than many of us expected in voting against Murray (his benefactor in the campaign) and I want to believe this will continue, but it does not hurt to sleep with one eye open for a while.
Like you I also read the Amanda Edinger online snit against Denise Barnes–excuse me–Council member Barnes, and can we just say this once and for all–Amanda Edinger lost her ability to claim the moral high ground in any pretense of the best interests of District 1 when she backed Lodge and tried to foist a violent and vindictive liar onto the people of West Anaheim–and no, the excuse that nobody KNEW him to be a violent and vindictive liar does NOT work. While the character and heart for public service shown by Councilmember Barnes takes into account the views of all constituents (even those who try to foist violent and vindictive liars onto their own neighbors AND take money for doing so) I believe Denise knows how to discern serious discussion from simple sour grapes as she reviews the opinions of constituents. For as nice as Barnes is, she also has some serious backbone, and she used it Tuesday to do what she believed was right, even in the face of opposing the majority. I have read the website for Welcome America, and I have offered Dr. Moreno my support for the program in any way he thinks I might be helpful. But I also respect that Mrs. Barnes saw something in the program that concerned her and it will surface as it needs to. We can disagree on issues and still be respectful.
THIS is where the Council majority of the past FAILED. It was never enough to outline their own positions that opposed the Mayor’s and then vote accordingly. They consistently refused to provide their reasons for support or opposition of issues, outside a nearly religious belief in the “expert” opinions of staff and consultants any reasoned 5th grader could out-think. The view seemed to be that they would outvote him simply because they COULD and neither the Mayor nor the citizenry was entitled to an explanation. And then not content to outvote him, they could not STAND that his well-reasoned opposition might make their poorly reasoned views look as inane as they were, and thus they had to SILENCE him, taking punitive action when needed to shut him up before he alerted the public to the massive heist of public funds taking place!
Their “horror” at firing the lawyer THEY brought in under a cloud, against the stated wishes of constituents, and with that lawyer taking the job KNOWING that cloud hung over him, was horse manure. Where was their “horror” at denying a mother with kids at home access to the paycheck her family planned and budgeted around? If the new majority were to behave as the old majority, they would point out that Districts now give Council members ONE SIXTH the constituents to work with and cut their aide access accordingly. While Murray is an at large member, with Council members covering 4 specific Districts there is no need for her to cover them and thus she could be subject to that cut. And thankfully nobody on Council even suggested such a thing, as they are showing to how use political power for the greater good and not their own personal and political means.
The ultimate hypocrisy was in Kring and Murray going bonkers at the idea they might not get a second to place items on upcoming agendas, when that is PRECISELY the form their own actions were trying to impose on Tait in September 2013!! If not for Kring momentarily going rogue and being unable to pick up on the daggers coming from the eyes of her colleagues, the Mayor would not have succeeded with even the few things he did get onto the agenda. (We ALL recall the time he asked DURING DISCUSSION OF AN ITEM ON AGENDA for more action on NEXT agenda and the CMO and CA flat out DIDN’T do it, so when the next meeting came up and Tait asked where the agenda item was they explained he hadn’t said, “Mother May I” at exactly the right time in the meeting, while spinning 3 times and waving a dead chicken foot over his head during a full moon. OK, I am kidding about the chicken foot. For Kring and Murray to be horrified that the majority might deny them their agenda items was laughable, and frankly a Council made up of those as vindictive and snotty as they have been WOULD have been punitive against them. I was proud to see the majority did ONLY what was needed and did not go past that point to be vengeful. They refused to use their power for their own personal or political payback, and it was a great moment to wtiness.
It was so wonderful to see the Mayor run a meeting as meetings should be run, in direct contrast to the last 6 years of obstructionist policies from those determined to NOT hear constituents’ concerns as they had their marching orders prior to the meetings. Tuesday we saw leaders openly discuss the merits of various issues and policies and create consensus through compromise, and while the meeting went long it was the well-oiled machine the majority kept claiming Tait was NOT running at Council meetings. Gee, guess whose fault that was all this time? Can you IMAGINE how much good might have been done had Tait been blessed with even reasonably fair-minded colleagues to assist in making Anaheim a place of kindness and decency? What an absolutely wasted opportunity, no matter what District one lives in we ALL lost for having such mean spirited and narrow minded people running the show for 6 years. May we make up for lost time, as soon as the stench washes out of those stables.
I did NOT see Amanda’s anti-Barnes snit, and I didn’t know until today that she was working for “Chavez Lodge.” That’s just where my mind logically went when Denise said that she’d been getting sanctuary-city-related grief from “District 1” – I immediately thought, Esther Wallace, Amanda Edinger, other folks whose names I don’t know (but including one who yelled at Donna “Go back to Mexico” near Twila Reid Park and one who put a nail in her tire outside a WAND meeting – in short, what we call “Estherville.”)
You guys are mean. I don’t read this blog but it was forwarded to me showing your bully words and tactics. I know very well Esther,Amanda, myself and a few others worked really hard to help district 1. No matter how it worked out, you are disrespecting people who are speaking up and doing a good job of being a concerned resident. No one needs pages and pages of rambling dialog to know you were not being nice. Please be more respectful to people who really care about the city they live in. Let us protect district 1, stick to your district.
Hmmm. I don’t think I wrote anything “mean” about you guys, if you’re talking to me. Should I have not mentioned my Mexican-American wife’s two unpleasant experiences over there? It seemed dishonest to keep silent about it.
If you were working to elect Steve Lodge, you should be ashamed of yourselves.
Sorry, not sorry, if that’s mean. It’s simply true.
Mean? No, accurately reporting on the new Council majority’s unwinding of bad policy that harms our entire community is not mean, it is simply reporting on what is right and good and fair and long delayed.
I am well aware of the efforts of Esther Wallace, but I am not sure how you lump her real work on behalf of West Anaheim to the efforts of a few others to put into office someone as opposite Esther in genuine passion for the community that Lodge and Wallace don’t belong on the same page.
Mean is turning your back on someone you know to be a long time resident of the area with a genuine record of PUBLIC SERVICE, while pushing onto the neighborhood a candidate with a publicly disclosed record of violence, and less history in the area than the cats hanging around Keno’s dumpster. (For the record I used to live in the apartment complex Lodge carpetbagged into while leaving his escape pod open in Murietta, and my ex still operates the business we started together in District 1, ownership which impacts my kids, so I have more past history and ongoing connectedness in District 1 than Lodge does.)
Since you admit you don’t read this blog you may have missed this the first time around: Does this look like someone who should be in charge of forming Police policy in a city simmering with racial tensions?
http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2016/11/steve-chavez-lodge-is-a-very-bad-man-part-one/
Mean is using a semi-public neighborhood oriented online forum to slam a newly elected Council member for doing her job and doing it well. Mean is denigrating someone in front of her family, friends, and neighbors for looking out for your neighborhood and trying to protect it from the ongoing harm that City Hall has imposed on West Anaheim for DECADES while you and your team align yourselves with the very power structure responsible for the disinvestment in West Anaheim to benefit special interests. Mean is slamming Denise Barnes for ensuring the Mayor, who was elected at large to serve the entire City, has the resources needed to do the job he was elected to do. Mean is insulting Denise Barnes for driving a stake into the heart of a vampire project sucking the life’s blood from every taxpayer in America who funds the gas taxes that will pay for the Disney-benefitting streetcar. Mean is accusing Denise Barnes of not looking out for District 1 as she pushes back on a project that tried to use eminent domain to take the private property of an American family based on the demand of Disney and to the benefit of Disney, an abuse of power that West Anaheim SHOULD wake up to before inviting that SAME government structure to come play in the back yard of Beach Blvd. If you can’t see the extreme danger of government officials who have no problem using their power for such self-dealing then maybe you could encourage your pals to sit silently until you all get a lesson in basic civics 101 and see what a great thing is happening rather than continue verbally abusing Barnes for DOING THE RIGHT THING.
Yes, we CAN have a discussion here about the definition of “mean,” but I am not sure it ends as you envision it. Jodie, I hope you had a nice Christmas, I genuinely wish you a New Year filled with the Lord’s blessings, and I hope you and your crew eventually come to see how fortunate you are that voters did not listen to you when considering who to vote for in District 1, because you have a leader of exceptional character with a good moral compass who will well represent your neighborhood.
“I know very well Esther,Amanda, myself and a few others worked really hard to help district 1”
What did you do to help District 1? Just curious, Ms. Mosely, since I don’t know who you are.
Nope, I was right. You are mean.
Meaner than Steve “Chavez” Lodge?
…aka “a junkyard dog?”
Junkyard dogs don’t lie to judges about what they’ve done.
Hmmm…. NONE of them do?
https://www.google.com/search?espv=2&biw=1093&bih=510&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=sneaky+dog&oq=sneaky+dog&gs_l=img.3…8638.9244.0.9535.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0….0…1c.1.64.img..0.0.0.WhPW_3rQr38#imgrc=_g8WJ4SjXOMxaM%3A
Oh, I get it. The non-specific accusations of being “mean” are much like the entire existence of the Matt Cunningham blog, which was set up to offer a “news publication” that could be quoted for hit pieces during the elections.
So Jodie calls us “mean” and the forces of political evil pull up that page in 2018 to hit whoever we may be supporting, with IEs showing the screen capture proving we are MEAN, as published by our own home blog.
Wow, what a brilliant PR strategy. “Vote for Candidate XX, because the other guy/gal is supported by ‘mean’ people.” Sounds like a winner. Brought to you by the folks who blew a quarter of a million dollars to LOSE with a good looking, veteran, ex-cop candidate, which SHOULD be the trifecta of campaigns, and STILL could not be successfully sold to the populace of West Anaheim.
Far be it from us to get in the way of that winning plan. Apparently, “mean” is another way of saying, “you won and I don’t like it.”
“…a good looking, veteran, ex-cop candidate…”
Um… from what I hear from women … good-looking maybe to some coarser tastes.
.
This is my first time reading and commenting on this blog. I guess there is a first time for everything.
First and foremost, residents do not lose moral high ground because they support and help candidates that you do not, Cynthia. Second, I am free to criticize Denise just as you have criticized and continue to criticize other Anaheim City Council members. It is highly hypocritical for you to have spent the past several years criticizing council only to slam those of us that have done the same to Denise.
I do not believe that you care less for Anaheim simply because you share a different set of ideas and political persuasions than I do. There are many wonderful West Anaheim residents. A majority of whom are just doing their best to provide for their families and improve their quality of living. Some of them voted for Steve Lodge. Others voted for Leonard Lahtinen and Denise Barnes. I feel confident that they all care for their community despite who they voted for. If you want to spend 2017 mocking our views and treating those residents that disagree with you with utter contempt, you are truly doing yourself a disservice. It helps no one and does nothing to change people’s minds. It only solidifies our way of thinking.
I will continue down the same path of doing my best to fight for quality businesses and housing for West Anaheim and to positively change my community. If Denise wants to listen, great! If she chooses to ignore the 70+% that did not vote for her or those have criticized her, then that is her cross to bear.
Happy New Year to you.
“If you want to spend 2017 mocking our views and treating those residents that disagree with you with utter contempt, you are truly doing yourself a disservice. It helps no one and does nothing to change people’s minds. It only solidifies our way of thinking.”
Hey, um, anyone have notes on how Murray, Brandman, Kring, and Eastman treated residents who disagreed with them?
I have mockery with a extra large side of contempt.
Just want to make sure I’m remembering exactly who supported that attitude spanned over multiple years before making wild character attacks.
Anyone?
Contempt and haughty high dudgeon stirred with fake indignation, Ryan, is what my notes show. I don’t remember being mocked so much as lied about continually. Kring may have tried to mock us at times, but when she tried to do so it was mostly puzzling.
Just checking.
You’d think from Amanda’s note that she’s applying a completely different expectation of good behavior to Cynthia than she does to those individuals on the council with whom she agrees.
I think there’s a word for that.
First of all, welcome to the site, Amanda. On behalf of the management, you’re welcome here and we’ll treat you like one of the gang, which may include some strong disagreement from at times.
Your statement that “residents do not lose moral high ground because they support and help candidates that you do not” suggests that you think that you think that a claim on moral high ground is a matter of “form”: everyone who is interested in local politics is entitled to it. I think that your being entitled to your vote is a matter of form: you’re a citizen of the city, so you get to vote, and no one should criticize you for voting.
Enjoying the “moral high ground” in an election, though, isn’t a matter of “form”: you’re not simply entitled to it based upon your status as an interested voter or volunteer. It’s a matter of “content.” And the argument that Cynthia made is that, as her headline stated, Lodge is a bad man.
That’s a strong charge and you have every right to disagree with it — and to do so here, so long as you can do so without engaging in anonymous attacks or extreme behavior that I don’t think you’ve ever displayed in local blogs. (And this is indeed Amanda Edinger, for anyone who wonders.) I, Cynthia, and others here would he happy to spell out for you why we think that that is — for reasons way beyond simply his slavish devotion to Resort District subsidies and impunity for police. If you’re game, it would be an interesting and maybe even productive conversation.
But while we do mock here, as you’ll notice takes place as well (though with less wit) at Anaheim Blog, it’s rarely the main motivation for our writing. To the extent that your views don’t make sense, they may well be mocked, but only when those views become heinous do they draw contempt.
Ms. Amanda,
It’s hard to maintain high moral ground when you support a candidate who:
1) has a record as a perjuring, physically abusive policeman
2) has a record as a physically abusive civilian
3) has a record of profiting from useless and/or corrupt Anaheim public works projects
4) carpetbagged into a neighborhood with what appears to have been a completely fake residence.
5) was supported by hundreds of thousands of dollars from a tiny but uber-wealthy consortium intent on keeping its obscene crony capitalism pipeline open and flowing.
etc., etc., etc.
The waters around that moral high ground grew quickly. Then the high ground was gone.
It’s hard to believe Amanda has never read this blog. We are the ones who made her famous nearly four years ago:
http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2013/05/the-anti-immigrant-nonsense-of-amanda-edinger-the-brandman-kring-appointee-to-anaheims-districting-commission/
I cannot believe how much time I have wasted on this, in an effort to clear up a misinformation campaign, presented on a spoon by Cunningham and SOAR, to those who have skipped the obligation to check facts on their own. But I am dead tired of being accused of things I have not said and I’m putting an end to it right now.
Happy New Year to both Amanda and Jodie,
First lets make sure we are on the same page, because I did not say that residents lose their moral high ground for supporting candidates I don’t support. Those who forfeit moral high ground do so by promoting candidates without reviewing them for the character reference being offered. There is a difference.
Nor have I “mock(ed) your views and treat(ed) those residents that disagree with (me) with utter contempt,” and I am curious where you believe I said such things. Others disagree with me all the time, it happens right here on this blog. Our interpretation of facts can vary wildly and we respect each others’ differences and often learn from each others’ differences. I have exactly no stake at all in whether others agree with me. My own personal experience confirms your statement that , “there are many wonderful West Anaheim residents. A majority of whom are just doing their best to provide for their families and improve their quality of living.”
At no time did I denigrate the fine citizens of West Anaheim (I was one for my entire childhood and a good chunk of my adult life until moving to the Colony about 17 years ago.) Nor do I blame those who simply voted for Lodge, as they did so in good faith based on the limited information available to them. I reserved my horror for those who PROMOTED Lodge without reviewing his past actions or after dismissing reports of his past actions, because I believe there is a higher standard of accountability to those who endorse a candidate than those who simply vote for them.
And you merely assume that we “share a different set of ideas and political persuasions” because both Amanda and Jodie have steadfastly refused all offers to sit down and speak with me face to face, despite my efforts to reach you even before the election led us to opposing sides of the ballot box. So if you have never been to this blog and you have refused to sit down and get to know me, how do you know what my ideas or political persuasions are? You might be surprised how many views we DO share in common, but for now I want to address what you THINK I said vs what was actually said.
There seems to be a confusion between “accountability” and “attack” and let’s lay that to rest. Jodie and Amanda, you put your names on a stamp of approval for Steven Albert Chavez Lodge, telling others in essence, “hey you know us, we are active in West Anaheim and we have checked this person out and we think they are good for Anaheim, please support them.” Is that “opinion” contrary to your view of things? Or is that what you did when supporting and endorsing Lodge?
Because my next question is this;
DID you conduct reasonable due diligence in vetting Lodge as a good guy prior to endorsing him for Council? I have doubts, because you both say you have not been to this blog before, and we have covered Lodge since the “Great Chavez Disaster of 2012” so had you even run a google search on him you would have come here repeatedly. Had you ignored this blog as “the opinionated enemy” you STILL would have ended up directed here by other sites that referenced Lodge info produced in original form here. So to say you have never been to this site while claiming you checked out Lodge provides a conflicting storyline that needs further development.
To both Jodie and Amanda, my objection to your support of Lodge is that A) you did not merely vote for him, you worked to influence others to do so, and your endorsement of Lodge indicated some form of character reference on your part.
B) enough credible information from unbiased sources (such as court docs and restraining orders) was available and publicly known to indicate Lodge’s character was questionable and worthy of further investigation.
Those public court documents included a restraining order which Lodge did not deny, but simply offered his own version of events and the excuse that he was OK with punching the guy who was sleeping with his wife. Now marriages end every day, many with the assistance of another party, and while the vast majority of those victims of adultery CONSIDER violence (hard to be human and not want to deck the guy diddling your wife) civilized people manage to restrain themselves from the impulse.
WORSE: We put out a video right here that shows a very different scenario from what Lodge claimed. Can you deny that this is Lodge in the video? Can you deny this video debunks Lodge’s claim he was attacked? http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2016/11/steve-chavez-lodge-is-a-very-bad-man-part-one/
As a cop, Lodge was found by a jury to be liable for the injuries to someone he was arresting, with an award of PUNITIVE DAMAGES. That is enormous, considering OC juries DO NOT find against cops, and certainly not to the tune of PUNITIVE damages. And when the City of Santa Ana appealed the award the Judge had very uncomplimentary things to say about Lodge. ALL of that was reported in media sources, citing actual court documents, NOT simply my opinion.
C) So did you issue that public character reference to someone without checking on them? OR did you check on Lodge but found overriding considerations of his special brand of leadership of such benefit that you were willing to overlook those negatives against him in the name of some greater good that he, and only he, could bring to the dance at City Hall? Because even if you decided for yourselves that he is such a rock star of a civic leader that his plan for West Anaheim overcomes all those pesky court documents claiming he may not be the nice guy you want to think he is, that still forfeits the moral high ground.
Even the “we didn’t know” excuse is no excuse when stepping out and offering a character reference for someone with the specific intent of influencing the votes of others who rely upon you for that background check. Failure to conduct due diligence is as negligent as hiding bad information.
My objection to Lodge was firmly rooted long before I knew Denise Barnes existed, and your support of Lodge has NOTHING to do with my support of Denise. I honestly believe ANY ONE of the other candidates (from BOTH political parties) would have capably and honestly represented District 1, had Denise not run or had she not been victorious. I was genuinely pleased to see the caliber of candidates who came out to represent District 1, who all seemed to largely agree with each other on the big quality of life issues despite very different ideological backgrounds about how to get West Anaheim to the place of being the best she can be. The only candidate I found objectionable was Lodge, and not because he holds opinions contrary to my own but because of a verified history of behavior that is unsuitable to any position of power, a history that SHOULD have red flagged him to YOU had you checked on him before lending your name and character reference to him.
Specifically to Amanda, you have now failed to vet the candidate you worked for and/or overlooked credible negatives, while also lending your name to a community organization that is PROVEN to promote false information to create public opinions to their own benefit. Yet despite failing to use a critical eye to those people or groups you support, you jumped on Denise Barnes without doing homework to see how her positions lead to benefits for Anaheim residents. Does anyone else see a pattern of selective review forming?
In fact, if we wanted to really look at the details, we can show Lodge made huge money on the Streetcar contract because of his “registered opportunity” as the lobbyist on the project with Hill International, and Amanda was paid by Lodge. Now Amanda is slamming Denise for ending a project that lined her boss’s pockets. I don’t think Amanda was paid for that by the way, but in any other scenario we would call that a conflict of economic interest, and Amanda would be prevented from participating in discussion if it was anywhere that impacted actual policy and not on a community email board.
Claiming moral high ground requires one to show that you faithfully reviewed the facts regarding promotion of a candidate you presented to your neighbors as a good choice for West Anaheim, or that the claims of organizations you lend your name to are verified and credible, and don’t mislead your neighbors into belief of inflated benefits in order to grant special privileges that may not otherwise be offered if the truth were known.
Either you KNOW without question that what you support is true or you don’t and moral high ground requires that knowledge and not merely assumption and opinion.
Thanks for weighing in over here. I wish we could have had this discussion over coffee a year ago, but it was your choice. I will wish you all the blessings God might offer you in the coming 2017 all the same, and I genuinely wish you and your families well despite your being wildly misinformed about who I am or what my positions and politics may be. On the other hand, while I can wish you well and even understand that your view of me has been largely misinformed by others with a stake in misleading that opinion of me, it doesn’t mean I will sit quietly and take your crap or allow it to be flung at others who don’t deserve it. Do your homework ladies, because your misinformation campaign stands to harm those hard working West Anaheim residents trying to make life better for themselves, and I truly believe that is not your intent, even if it is the outcome.
ummm… skadoosh?
Too long for a skadoosh. This is a woodshed moment.
I don’t know Amanda, but I would hazard to guess she would only comment using her name when it suits her to do so.
I wouldn’t expect to see her post anytime soon.
They post over at Matt’s fever swamp under assumed names. I am shocked they came over here under their own. But also proud of them.
And I don’t want a skadoosh award for having to take adults out behind the woodshed when I would have preferred to resolve the issues behind the scenes like civilized people. Sadly they declined offers to do that back when it could have avoided the bad feelings, preferring instead to accept the backstabbing misinformation others offered about who I am and what my views are. If this is their only effort to communicate publicly, then I guess that is what we are left with, but it is not my first choice.
The whole thing is so damn sad, because I do believe they want West Anaheim to be a better place, and are being fed horse manure on a silver spoon by those with an interest in keeping West Anaheim begging for resources, and therefore at the mercy of the City Hall overlords. Nobody wins that game, except for those making the rules, and that is NOT the people of West Anaheim, that is for certain.
Had they backed ANY of the genuine West Anaheim residents with a heart for service who ran to represent District 1 there would not have been an issue. The other candidates were not subjected to abuse (to the extent I know of) and their supporters were treated with respect (to the extent I know of) while attacks on Lodge came from every corner of the opposition and not just those who supported Denise.
But all of that will be ignored, because we are “Mean” while the openly hostile and punitive acts taken by the prior Council majority are overlooked. What planet have I landed on?
Here’s hoping 2017 has a lot more civility to it, and that does NOT mean everyone agrees and marches in lock step it simply means we all hear each other and respect others’ views without the need to punish them for speaking up. A girl can hope….