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Allegedly risky “group home” The Lighthouse, brought to you in 2004, not by Moreno but by MITCH CALDWELL (Inset.)
It’s gonna be a bitter two and a half months in Anaheim’s District 3, as SOAR has just, in mid-August, sent out its first mailer against the councilman they most hate and fear, Dr. Jose Moreno. As we won’t tire of explaining, SOAR (Support Our Anaheim Resort) is the PAC created by Disney and other large Anaheim resort companies to maintain their stranglehold over Anaheim politics, a stranglehold that was somewhat weakened by our first district election in 2016, but which they’re trying HARD to re-establish.
Now before you tell me that it was not SOAR, but some “Anaheim Neighborhood Association” (ANA) that sent this flyer out (front, back) let me disabuse you of that distinction: the return address is the “Historic Beck House” at 319 North Harbor, the home of Michelle Lieberman (Planning Commissioner appointed by SOAR councilwoman Lucille Kring), and the location that just two weeks ago hosted a SOAR fundraiser, at which we protested and from which we reported. (SOAR fundraisers are more traditionally either at The Catch restaurant or at the million-dollar home of Mitch Caldwell, the candidate SOAR has chosen to run against Moreno.) So, color me simplistic, but I’m saying ANA is an arm of SOAR.
Let’s get back to this mailer. We’d predicted a while back that fear and revulsion against the homeless would be one of SOAR’s main tools in this campaign. This mailer purposely conflates a few different things and tries to blame them on Jose: the homelessness crisis, the phenomenon of “group homes” for people overcoming substance abuse issues, and, as you’ll see below, recuperative care facilities which are completely different. But in any case, the image at the top of this story sets the stage for SOAR’s lies – it is of “The Lighthouse,” a group home at 1300/1310 W. Pearl St. which was approved in 2004 long before Moreno was on Council, and was actually granted its permit (CUP) by a previous Planning Commission led by Mitch Caldwell himself. [Pause for contemplating the hypocrisy…]
Front, bottom half … the deceptions continue…
So, apparently group homes are the new bogeyman du jour? Well, for those keeping score at home ESPECIALLY IF YOUR HOME IS IN DISTRICT 3: There are about a dozen in your district. ALL BUT ONE of them predate Moreno’s tenure, and ALL BUT TWO of them required no permit from the city, as long as they have a maximum of six residents (though they could break the law, but that’s not Jose’s or Mitch’s fault.) The Lighthouse, which is the largest of all (and hence most ideal for fearmongering) has 40 beds and thus needed and got approval from Mitch Caldwell’s Planning Commission, and subsequently a unanimous Council … in 2004, twelve years before Moreno got onto Council! (Correction – even worse. It was approved in 2004 with TEN beds, and needed permission in late 2016, which it got from Mitch’s Planning Commission – to expand to FORTY beds.)
During Jose’s tenure on Council only ONE group home has been approved: “Grandma’s House of Hope” on the west side of Harbor, with ten beds. There was no controversy over it, and apparently it’s not scary enough to be featured on this flyer. And yet we’re to believe that the frightened masses are calling out as one:
Back, top half. LOL. Do you see now how ridiculous and deceitful this flyer is?
Okay, now we’ll get to the really big lies, which they’ve warmed us up for. These have to do with the 75-bed Recuperative Care Facility that was planned by Moreno and others on Wilshire Ave, near the 5 and the Super-Walmart:
Back, bottom, and scraping the bottom. Click for larger image.
First of all, with all SOAR’s talk here of “the homeless,” “group homes,” “drugs” and “property crimes,” you’d be excused for not realizing that this was planned specifically as a “recuperative care facility,” for elderly, ill, and injured people who need acute care and daily medication, people recently released from Anaheim Regional or the VA. They are not going to be breaking into your damn house, and from that location they do NOT have easy access to the Westmont neighborhood which SOAR is trying to frighten into voting Mitch, or any schools.
When SOAR complains about the “little or no notice to residents,” they’re referring to the town hall meeting Jose held regarding this facility, for which only neighbors in a 300-yard radius were notified, a meeting we also reported from. Mitch Caldwell and realtor Paul Kott were among the SOAR members in the audience that night, whipping the attendees up into a frenzy with the same lies they’ve printed here – this was going to be just another obnoxious “group home” that Jose wants to foist on the neighborhood, while Mitch knew full well that he is much more to blame for group homes than Jose. Hence, the image of Mitch with devil horns, which I hope to improve.
But getting back to that 300-yard notice – Jose DID listen to residents’ concerns, and DID try to take action, attempting to change the notice required for such meetings in the future to 500 yards … but the rest of the Council found that too burdensome and over-ruled him. So SOAR can take that “doesn’t listen, doesn’t take action,” and stick it where the sun don’t shine.
THIS ELECTION is near-existential for the SOAR forces, and we have to treat it the same way. We are likely to get a Mayor we can trust if we push hard enough for her; and we are probably doomed to a new SOAR councilman from District 6 (the Hills.) So, mathematically, we are SCREWED if EITHER Jordan or Mitch wins in District 2 or 3 – all the modest reforms of the past two years will be undone, and the looting and pillaging of 2001-16 will resume, apace.
Vern out.
I used to complain to Gus Ayer that I’d write posts that would get a lot of readers but few or no comments. He’d say, kindly, “It’s because some of your stories are so thorough there’s nothing to add.” I remind myself of that sometimes.
Also there’s this now: this story and my “World Turned Upside Down” one keep getting anonymously reported on Facebook as spam. And then when I appeal to Facebook they get restored. SOMEBODY is trying to censor my recent Anaheim stories.
That’s the problem with Facebook playing an increasingly significant role in politics. It’s just too easy to game.
I can understand why certain candidates might want to keep this information from the public (which will just make us try harder and from more angles, so it’s stupid.) But this raises a question that’s worth its own piece.
Why, after Disney’s dramatic action, is SOAR still a going concern?
At this point, what are they fighting FOR? Why do they care about even HAVING a “SOAR Slate” if Disney is going to play it straight from now on.
Tom Tait has commented to me over the years that his favorite pieces of mine are “Theories of Anaheim Parts 1 and 2” from I think 2013 or so. He called me last night, in light of this move by Disney, to chat (mostly off the record, but I think I can make some exceptions) about these events. I can publicly say that he sees these developments as quite positive and as probably indicating that Disney’s corporate HQ in Burbank finally took a good look at what was happening in Anaheim and realized that they were getting bad PR for no real benefit, as they stood to gain more from being good neighbors within a strong and solid city of Anaheim. (He was also very appreciative of this blog’s dogged leadership on these issues.)
Anyway, we talked a bit about just the above issue — what SOAR still wanted at this point from the election? — and he made the point that it might take some time for Anaheim interests to catch up with the new mindset coming from Burbank, but that he was confident that it would happen reasonably soon. I mentioned that I should probably write about that — and he chuckled and told me that I had already done so, years ago, in those pieces — which he had sent (and followed up on) to people he knew on the Disney Board of Directors.
So I re-read them last night — and yes, though I had forgotten it, this was a major theme. I think that I’ll put them together into one piece long enough to choke Gustavo and republish them as the Weekend Open Thread (or as a standalone.) They still stand up, and it’s a good time to revisit them.
As everyone knows, I’m not allowed to tell people not to support Brandman (or the less-deserving-of-disparagement Henninger) in Districts 2 and 6 due to their DPOC endorsements. But my candidate Dr. Moreno — and this is a good chance to remind people that I always specify the “Dr.” to distinguish him from Republican “Jose Joe Moreno,” who I call “Jojo” and who has repeatedly tried to win campaigns by relying on the confusion between their names — DID win in District 3, so I can raise a question:
Given Disney’s reversal, what’s the point in even BEING Mitch Caldwell anymore?
I agree.
Someone in Burbank woke up. Good for them.
Mitch Caldwell? It’s fun to hear him speak, I discovered last night at the Phoenix Club. (The fact he was there was itself a nice surprise – out of eight SOAR candidates in the last two elections and ARA debates, he was the only one to deign to show.) You get the sense Mitch Caldwell could talk his way out of any situation, in a gruff earthy way that the untrained listener could confuse with truthfulness.
He supported the Gardenwalk Giveaway (which he couldn’t deny) because of O’Connell-recession-specific reasons, but was outraged by Disney’s demands for the same treatment (an opposition which nobody has ever heard him express.) He belongs to nobody but he’ll take money from ANYBODY because he “has to beat THIS guy” (Moreno.)
But Daniel Robbins caught him in an awkward lie. His current campaign literature boasts of him being a supporter, yea, architect, of Anaheim’s beloved district elections – but Daniel tracked down the fact that Mitch signed on to the 2014 argument AGAINST district elections. WAIT WAIT WAIT, that’s not the lie. What everyone there heard was FIRST Mitch claiming that Daniel was wrong, that he had never signed the AGAINST argument … and then, seconds later, explaining WHY he signed it (that old “I wish I could vote for more council candidates” story.)
Jeez suddenly I remember what that echoed in my mind – Chapelle’s catching Rick James saying “No of course I didn’t rub my dirty boots on Eddie Murphy’s couch, why would I do that?” and then seconds later, “Yeah of course I did, because they could AFFORD a new couch!”
Cocaine – it’s a hell of a drug.
“in a gruff earthy way that the untrained listener could confuse with truthfulness.”
Ouch. I get the feeling that good ol’ Mitch is one of Cunningham’s regular pseudonymous hatchet men.
There’s a King Lear quote. (Inconveniently, it’s an asshole character (Cornwall) talking about an honorable character (Kent) but still it’s a good observation)
“This is some fellow
Who, having been prais’d for bluntness, doth affect
A saucy roughness, and constrains the garb
Quite from his nature. He cannot flatter, he!
An honest mind and plain–he must speak truth!
An they will take it, so; if not, he’s plain.
These kind of knaves I know which in this plainness
Harbour more craft and more corrupter ends
Than twenty silly-ducking observants
That stretch their duties nicely.”
(King Lear, Act II Scene II)
Shawn Nelson.
And Mitchell Caldwell.
What’s his rationale, at this point, for why he “has to beat” Moreno, after Disney’s shift? Because he was right prematurely? Because he’s Latino? Seriously, at this point, what’s his beef — even theoretically? Because he’s in Caldwell’s way?
I’d say he’s sticking with his propaganda as though he believed it: He’s all about NEIGHBORHOODS and Jose is bad for the NEIGHBORHOODS, being somehow responsible for homelessness and group homes, and an unresponsive uncaring LEFTIST.