SOAR falls on Mike Robbins.

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From our friend Mike Robbins, homelessness / living wage / STR activist:

Robbins, Kanzler.

I am just an ordinary Anaheim resident, albeit one who actually shows up at city council meetings and tries with a few other committed residents to have some impact on the insanity at city hall.

And there I was at midnight after the long June 19 Council meeting, the 63-year old, out of shape dude, as the cop asked me questions. Apparently, some lady PAC leader found my presence to be intimidating?

What is a PAC? – These are political action committees that support candidates and issues usually paid for by corporations for maximum control of legislation affecting their industry. The Disney PAC controls our Anaheim world like a Baron lording over their serfs.

The Anaheim city council meetings are stressful and sometimes the PAC mercenaries come in to push their issues. This particular night this PAC (named SOAR, for “Support Our Anaheim Resorts”) even brought in at least 100 gigantic teamsters that seem to be wrapped around their fingers like little pink rubber bands they can manipulate and toy with.

You know – make the rubber band look like it is on all the fingers then “Voila!” it is on just two fingers. So it is the same with the Teamsters and the Disney PACs – during the day they are working hard, doing magic, building tall hotels, apartment houses and condos then at night “Voila!” be at the city council meeting or your job will vanish – Very Siegfied and Roy.

At this council meeting the PAC leader – some lady from Balboa Island – was there to laud over her domain which is Anaheim and their political world. Some lady from Balboa runs Anaheim? I mentioned that fact in my speech that night about the lady from Balboa that controls politics in Anaheim (and in some speeches at previous meetings.)

I say some lady – I know now that her name is Jill Kanzler – because I can never remember her name or even what she looks like and I usually turn to my wife and ask “Is that blond lady the one from SOAR, what’s her name?” It’s actually hard to tell her from the blond lady who is Disney’s government affairs person – Carrie Nocella (right with Councilwoman Murray – see?).

We have been outing SOAR and the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce as the PACs behind the Disney control of the city council for a while now. They are the crooks that talked our 2015 City Council to grant Disney 45 years with no gate tax, as they still endlessly jack up their ticket prices.

These are the players that screwed Anaheim out of the hundreds of millions of dollars in TOT taxes for the new 4 diamond hotels.

These are the swindlers that got you and me to pay for that huge parking garage and agree to give it, with all its profits, back to Disney.

If you have pot-holes on your streets that is because of the PAC that worked to exempt Disneyland from taxes. If you call the police and they show up 30 minutes to 2 hours later that is because the lack of tax dollars from Disney and the resort industry have shorted the Police department funding for the last 10 years.

Not enough money for police – blame SOAR. Not enough money for after-school programs – blame SOAR. Not enough money for parks – blame SOAR. Roads in terrible condition except around Disneyland – blame SOAR, and their bought-and-paid-for politicians over the years.

Some SUPER-RICH lady from Balboa Island has called the shots on whether your pot holes are filled, the streets are repaired, your kids have after school sports, whether we live or die for lack of a properly manned police force and more.

So this particular night at the city council – June 19 – the meeting ended really late, around midnight. I went out to the parking lot, got in my car and pulled up by the drive way with my car running, lights on, waiting for a friend to drive down from the parking structure to bring me a bag of vests for one of our events.

Turned out this blond lady from SOAR was in the same parking lot and came to her car behind me. Seeing my car stopped to the side of the 3-cars’-width driveway apparently scared her. The sight of this chubby 63-year old guy parked to the side of the driveway apparently terrified her.

Suddenly a couple of Anaheim Police approached and asked me to move my car from the driveway where I was waiting for my friend. One of them asked me, “How do you know this lady lives on Balboa Island?  Have you ever been to her house?”

“No” I replied.

Actually I’m not sure how I first learned that this Jill Kanzler, a big player in Anaheim politics, lives in Balboa. It may have been Mayor Tom Tait, Mayor Pro-Tem Moreno, or some other politician or activist who’d mentioned it to me 2 or 3 years ago, as they clued me in on Anaheim politics, who ran the show, what the game was, who were leaders and where they hailed from, in district 1 through 6 or out of town.

So to reiterate, rotten rich PAC leaders that do not live in Anaheim decide on our tax dollars, what gets fixed, or how many services we have, after school programs and parks plus more – you name it. This PAC “SOAR” and “The Anaheim Chamber of Commerce” make sure we pay taxes through the nose and Disney pays zero. And I gently call out this lady in public comments at a public meeting and she calls the undermanned Anaheim PD on me. I’m not sure where they got the extra police to stand out there with her at midnight for half an hour, including Acting Chief Julian Harvey.

“Don’t be intimidating the people at the council meeting,” Harvey (left) personally instructed me that night.

The lady from SOAR brings in no less than a hundred 300-pound teamsters to coerce the council on a poverty wage issue – I park by the driveway waiting for my friend and I’m the frightening one. By the way all the Teamsters are BIG, but nice guys, we laughed and joked and I tried to change their minds on the issue.

In reality the prime criminals in Anaheim, the ones that stole $2 billion from the city, the ones we all need PROTECTION from, are SOAR and The Anaheim Chamber of Commerce in collusion with Disneyland, PLUS Council members Kris Murray, Lucille Kring, Jordan Brandman, Harry Sidhu,  and Gail Eastman,  who were purchased for Millions of Dollars by the Disney PACs to manipulate their votes.

Those are the people the Police Chief should grill and the state attorney general should step in to prosecute.  As a regular Joe citizen exposed to the ugly, naked reality of the political world I am not sure how they are not in jail. The failures of the great American political system are evident here in Anaheim.

Michael J Robbins
Proud American and Anaheim resident for 27 years
Member of the Anaheim Homeless Policy Working Group

POSTSCRIPTS FROM VERN:

1. I was there when Mike first mentioned in public comments that Jill was from Balboa – that was the May 15 meeting, Jill had just finished a three-minute stemwinder full of exaggerations, distortions and scare stories about how a Living Wage would destroy our town, and she came back to sit in the row behind me, a little to my and Donna’s right.  Mike started his talk, “To begin with, I’m getting a little tired of folks driving up here from Balboa and telling us how – ” and the moment Jill heard the word “Balboa” she hissed out loud enough for half the room to hear, “You MOTHERFUCKER!”  Half the room gasped or laughed.

2. Jill had been demanding a police escort out to her Jaguar even before that (as far as I know, for years.)  When she first came to speak against the Living Wage in April, I heard her ask for an escort.  A union leader was trying to argue with her about some of her “facts” – but he was speaking respectfully and from at least twenty feet away.  I managed to get in a question to her myself:  “Are you actually saying you guys might not build those four subsidized hotels?” and she snapped back at me, “Not if THIS shit [the living wage] goes through, we might not!”  She is very high strung, that Jill.

3.  At the LAST meeting, July 17 – Mike didn’t know this till I told him – Councilman Faessel talked during Council Communications about how outrageous and regrettable it is that some speakers are being threatened by other speakers on the way out to their cars, and that something – he wasn’t sure what – needs to be done about it.  Donna and I had no idea what incident or people he could have been talking about;  our best guess is it was a highly exaggerated reaction to THIS – Mike waiting for a friend in his car at the same time as Jill felt like leaving.

4.  We await the jawdropping AnaheimBlog version of this story.  That is one of the kleptocracy’s comforting standbys when they run out of decent arguments – the scariness of the people who disagree with them.


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