.
.
.
An Unnatural Disaster in Anaheim; End of a Bad Era in Costa Mesa.
City Councils
Aliso Viejo
Aliso Viejo elected three people to Council — I had thought that it would be only two — and that meant that there was room for Republican sure-bet incumbent Mike Munzing, Democratic incumbent Ross Chun — and OJB’s endorsed candidate (brought to my attention, as I recall, by Eugene Fields) progressive Dem Richard Hurt! With incumbent Tiffany Ackley, that creates a 3-2 Democratic majority. (Aliso Viejerans, has the ever happened before?) Good going, AV! Use that power wisely! (Be careful about the pensions and the Building Trades, for starters.)
Anaheim
Anaheim is thoroughly doomed. Disney and its friends (Arte Moreno included) got what they wanted: a complete sweep of the three races. The looting shall continue at an even quicker pace. Disney’s national reputation will suffer for its decision to suck up Anaheim’s resources for its own benefit without regard for its citizens — and heads there should roll. Anaheim’s bankruptcy now seems inevitable; the new Council majority will away give away more city property to Disney and friends (and Arte?) both before and during the grand municipal bankruptcy fire sale. (All of those small city parcels that have been eyed so ravenously, yum!) Workers with city pensions — including police officers and fire fighters — will be deeply and thoroughly screwed. (They can’t say that we didn’t warn them.)
On the ironically positive side, the city would default on lots of bonds from the Great Parking Lot and the Convention Center expansion, making it less likely that they can pull that kind of stunt again. (Again — they can’t say that they weren’t warned.) My guess is that Disney will buy the convention center — for a really good price — to go with its parking lot and the free Mickey and Friends lot. In fact, aside from its reputation and national disgrace, Disney comes out of this election with a chance for amazing amounts of vulture-investment property to buy, all the better to situate itself for Disneyland’s eventual return (now spend up by Biden’s election.)
Post-bankruptcy, Anaheim might end up a graft-driven Republican paradise, paying rent to Arte Moreno in its ironically re-branded “Scrooge McDuck City Hall.” ARTIC would finally be able to fulfill its true destiny as America’s Flashiest Massive Homeless Center. The poor will be cleared out, just as if the Olympics were arriving — which, after all, they are — and sent to whatever city can be forced to take them. (Would Disney prefer it be Buena Park? I think that Santa Ana is primed to fight back.) Dismal days ahead.
Honestly, the City’s best hope is that people fleeing from Hong Kong and Taiwan just buy up all of its housing at a good price and turn the city into a really amazing Chinatown. (They could recreate Hong Kong Disney here.) Losing all that great city history will be a pity, Anaheim — but elections matter! And you blew it.
District 1:
Denise Barnes‘s loss in District 1 is totally tragic. One Democrat apparently sent out hate mail against her claiming that she is “not a real Democrat.” (Uh — yes she is! She’s just not a white, ardently pro-choice, wealthy suburban one. So if you want a majority — people like her will have to be in it!)
But do you know who isn’t a Democrat? Jose Diaz, the guy who got 43.25% to beat her by 4.3%. So this was not a race between two Democrats, but between a good Democrat and an independent. Any Democrat with good values should have supported her. Sadly, that does not include enough of the outgoing DPOC to give her the nomination.
DPOC Chair Ada Briceño likely could have twisted enough arms (it’s not like she doesn’t know how) to get Denise the endorsement. Why didn’t she do so — when she had put so much effort this past decade into opposing the oppressive and kleptocratic policies that the new majority will now help Jordan Brandman promote? That, unfortunately, is likely due to her own future political ambitions — which depend on her not pissing off the Building Trades. (The #1 thing that the new DPOC should do is move the hell out of any Building Trades union hall, so that they can oppose them, when they’re wrong, without duress. Forget about trying to turn them around; what happened in Anaheim will have only whetted their maniacal thirst for municipal blood.)
None of the outcomes for Anaheim were good. But this was the only one that was a disaster.
District 4:
Anaheim’s District 4 race was less tragic than farce, its outcome clear for over a year as an oncoming train. Annemarie Randle-Trejo‘s and Jeanine Robbins earned their joint loss to Avelino “Vendido” Valencia Either might have beaten him on their own.
And, they could have. I realize that Avelino got 50.6% — official Republican Julie Brunette got 5% — which some seem to think means that the race was doomed anyway. Not so. That result occurred under these conditions:
- Disney and the Trades (and even SAPOA!) stomping on the gas to generate an relentless spew of mailers boosting Avelino (and some attacking Annemarie)
- This bombardment was so great that additional spending would have been wasted, or even counter-productive by pissing people off
- endorsers split between all three Democrats: with no clear viable alternative to Avelino, why aggravate him?
- major (and lesser) donors skipped the race because money spent on it it was clearly going down the drain
The amount that Disney spent in the race probably passed the point of counter-productivity, so we don’t have to worry much about it possibly spending more. But a single progressive opponent would likely have opened the tap for fundraising and other resources, led to a better endorsement result, and tamped down voter confusion. I haven’t yet seen the turnout in that district, or at least in this race relative to others, but I expect that it was relatively depressed.
Rationally, it was Jeanine who should have dropped out — the “popular Anaheim activist power” myth, if ever true (at least without Tom Tait as Mayor), was not going to be prevail with Covid impeding door knocking. But Annemarie had a political career to protect, and thus more to lose. In this game of chicken, I think that she should have been the one to swerve — not because she was less likely to win, but for her own good. I suggested once at the Anaheim Democratic Club that, if the DPOC couldn’t afford a poll to assess their chances — although now we know that they wouldn’t have wanted to help either — they just flip a coin to see which one would file. Maybe taking my suggestion may seem better to Annemarie now in retrospect — and her in office and Jeanine as her staffer would have been a very powerful duo — especially in what would have then been a dismal two-person minority where sounding occasional alarms is the only useful role.
I do understand their likely motivations. Both of them wanted to know where they stood, feedback that one never gets if one withdraws; each wanted to vindicate their theories of victory; each thought that they’d do the best job.
Now they know where they stand: Annemarie got 22.8% in the face of negative mailers; Jeanine 1.25% behind that (with no one even bothering to spend money attacking her.) They got a combined 44.35% — a number from which a victory over a candidate who got 50.6% was, with more money and support, plausible. This race now is a cautionary tale — sadly, one that too often won’t be heeded.
The villains in this case are those usual suspects who supported Avelino — plus one unusual suspect: the DPOC. And, I hate to say it, but Ada Briceño clearly could have twisted arms to deny Avelino the nomination had she wanted to buck the Trades. But her ambition is far more potent than her sense of duty.
Where do they go now? Jeanine will presumably return to her role leading a Council meeting truth squad — where she will be more needed now than ever. But what about Annemarie? I spent some time thinking about this, and came to a surprising conclusion.
Maybe Annemarie should run for Mayor. Hear me out on this!
After this debacle, I’d say that Jose Moreno should not run for Mayor (if it’s been decided that he’s even eligible after what will have been six years in the Council trenches.) Frankly, Anaheim asks too much from him to stay in his current seat at all. He’d more wisely resign, reset his term limits clock, let them appoint his dismal 2018 Walt Disney-aping opponent, get five years worth of academic writing done in two years, and come back in 2022 running for either District 3 or (if he liked seeing what Tait’s life was like under the Murray-Brandman majority) for Mayor.
So, if Jose does refrain, what other decent Democrats (or remaining decent Republicans) from likely perches might run against Sidhu?
- Former recent officeholders: Demise Barnes? James Vanderbilt? (Tom Tait won’t; don’t ask)
- Planning Commissioners: Steve White
- Other Commissioners: Only one I know is Mark Daniels
- School board members”
- Annemarie R-T (up in 2022 on the High School Board)
- Al Jabbar (also up in 2022 on the High School Board)
- Jose Paolo Magcalas (just reelected, Elementary Board)
- Jackie Filbeck (just reelected, Elementary Board)
- Ryan Ruelas (up in 2022 for Elementary Board)
- Wealthy residents: (Bill Taormina?)
- Spoilers responsible for Sidhu’s first win (Lorri Galloway)
It seems entirely possible to me that Annemarie, if she’s willing to give up her seat, could be the one on that list most likely to win.
District 5:
Steve Faessel won this seat in a walkaway, compared to 2016, with . His investment in Yesenia Rojas paid off and he got 52.8%. Kenneth Batiste — deeply underfunded, hampered by the inability to knock on doors, and facing withering attacks, managed only 16.8%. The remaining 30.4% went to the pretty, young, uninvolved in Anaheim issues, and mostly politically clueless Savrina Quezada — the only woman and only Latino in the race.
Batiste is part of a small, tightly-knit, highly effective activist group that overestimated their popularity with the public — as well as what it would take to win in a pandemic. The smart thing to do, in retrospect, would be to find out if they could trust Savrina, get her on the record favoring the major issues they care about, and then support her against Faessel. But again, that’s just not how things usually work — and had they done so they wouldn’t have learned the lesson that they learned this year about how deserving public esteem and receiving it in an election are two different things.
Where do things go from here?
I’m not sure where Anaheim’s term limits law stands right now, but I think Faessel runs for Mayor when Sidhu’s done.
Quezada … I don’t know, but maybe she could get involved in Anaheim politics. Take her to a few meetings and if she survives them with a heart simmering with disgust, she has a future.
Batiste: #1 and most importantly — take as many Toastmaster’s classes as possible and add a second pitch of smoothness to his current earnest but unpolished appeals.
Then, he needs to identify people who really will back him financially — and come up with something where they prove that they’ll follow through.
But I don’t know if serving on a city council minority suits him anyway. He’s more likely to recruit and help the next progressive and serious version of Sav Quezada, one who can win a Council seat.
Brea
While Brea’s school board races were interesting, its city races were not. Two City Council seats were up. Christine Marick won re-election with 36.34% of the vote. Marty Simonoff did so with 32% — almost 12% ahead of Tyler Baugh. In the Treasurer’s race, Denise Eby upset (from what I can tell) Bev Perry by about 7% — and will hopefully become Brea’s last elected Treasurer.
Buena Park
One great outcome in BP; one was same-old, same-old: same, old.
District 3
OJB-endorsed Susan Sonne convincingly won a Council seat with 51%, besting Sharon Smith (wife of Councilmember Fred Smith) by over 20%! Sonne was a progressive favorite and it will be very interesting to see how she fits into the Council. Maybe big changes are afoot?
District 4
Conservative Democrat Art Brown beat Donna Varona Sipl with almost 59.5% of the vote, marking Brown’s seventeen-millionth term.
Costa Mesa
OJB-endorsed Katrina Foley won the Mayor’s race with over 53% — 30% over nearest competitor Sandy Genis, with three others trailing. Foley hopefully stays put in the face of other temptations. Genis is termed out. Non-Mayoral candidate Allan Mansoor was termed out this year as well, so except for Riggy-opponent Foley herself there goes the last remnant of the Righeimer Era. And good riddance!
District 1
Don Harper beat John Stephens by 321 votes (about 3%). A third candidate trailed with 16%. Maybe I shouldn’t be shocked, but I’m sort of shocked. Was this due to the “city seal” controversy?
District 2
OJB and DPOC-endorsed Loren Gameros won with 49.4% of the vote, over RNOC-endorsed Ben Chapman with over 30% and Gary Parkin with over 20%
District 6
OJB-endorsed Jeffrey Harlan got 46.92% of the vote, beating Jeff Pettis by over 26%, with two others trailing.
Coming up tomorrow: Cypress to Fullerton! (We hope….)
I’m still working on my Anaheim autopsy piece but I don’t disagree with you on a whole lot. Maybe:
“Ada Briceño clearly could have twisted arms to deny Avelino the nomination had she wanted to buck the Trades.”
Did you realize that Ada was, and remains, among Avelino’s most ardent advocates? And none of us can figure out why. She “explained” to Jeanine that she’s “just tired of losing, she wants to win.” And the rest of us were, “Win against WHO?” There were no serious Republicans in the race. The only people Avelino & Ada were gonna win against were two good Democrats (although Jeanine has left the party in disgust.) One explanation I heard was that Ada and the DPOC thought they saw the opportunity to elect someone who would do anything they say, but didn’t realize that with Avelino, “they had entered an auction where they were the lowest bidder.”
Oh, by the way,
On the other hand, Ada REPORTEDLY was a strong backer of Denise and Kenneth. But how strong? The DPOC endorsements of those two were torpedoed by other malign forces in the party.
In the district 5 race, influential Democrats Lou Correa and LuisAndres Perez, both of whom are building trades people who are perfectly happy with Republican Faessel winning and Sidhu retaining his majority, saw a chance in the substanceless Savrina to split the Democrat vote. And after denying Kenneth the endorsement they went on helping Savrina and telling other Democrats and Latinos to vote for her, while secretly backing Republican Faessel.
Denise was attacked by (slightly) other forces in the DPOC, led by Melahat and Jordan Brandman, based on her being a newly minted Democrat and having made a few Republican-ish votes in recent years (against the Pride flag, against a big union agreement.) They even pretended that her principled vote against the new City Manager was based on the fact he’s gay, something NOBODY EVEN KNEW until professional victim Jordan Brandman brought it up. Last night I learned that Connor Trout, mayor pro tem in neighboring Buena Park, was meddling in District 1, telling West Anaheimers to vote for klepto-cipher Jose Diaz because “Denise is a fake Democrat.” Some unions were doing the same.
On Savrina, who was a great effective campaigner (although she broke some laws) and has promised to run again in 2024 – I’d like it if she learned something about Anaheim and learned right from wrong. But I expect the kleptocracy to adopt and groom her. Her only platform was “vote for me because I’m young, Latina and a single mother;” after a few weeks she came up with Universal Basic Income ($400 a month for all residents) and a checking account for all students starting with Kindergarten. She really doesn’t seem interested in learning anything about what has happened and is happening in Anaheim, and would probably rather listen to the people who got 53% of the vote than the people who got 17%. So I’m not too optimistic about her but I COULD BE WRONG – she should read the Orange Juice Blog!
Add all that to the body of the text, if you’d like! Good stuff! I think that I remember people telling me much of that, but if I can’t write something down right away I can’t always retain it.
Ada’s “I just want to win!” sounds less like an real reason than am argument-ender, much like “I just love Trump so much!” is when it come from his thralls. “I just want to get elected to the State Senate, like me hero from the Los Angeles Labor Fed!” is more like it.
Let’s deny that Savrina our sleeper agent, who is never to acknowledge our agreement with her to report back to us all of the ways they’ve tried to charm and entice her after the next election, when she can turn on them, with the embargoed reports coming to us as contemporaneous evidence of what she witnessed when. That way, they’ll never suspect that they shouldn’t put their chips on her.
Update – Buena Park Mayor Pro Tem Connor Traut denies that he ever told anyone to vote for Jose Diaz, or that Denise Barnes is a “fake Democrat.” He says he doesn’t even know Jose Diaz.
When a District 1 Democrat told me this, it was believable, because Connor is very close to Jordan, and Jordan attacked Denise behind the scenes relentlessly. But still, Connor denies it.
As Connor is now a competent attorney, let’s take those statements one-by-one:
(1) He didn’t have to know Diaz to tell someone to vote for him. He didn’t even have to refer to him by name, he could just say “Vote for whomever endorsed.”
(2) He didn’t have to call Denise a “fake Democrat” to endorse against her.
This is not to say that Connor did either support Diaz or oppose Denise — but just to point out that, so far, his statement is at present a double “non-denial denial,” an utterance that is sometimes called “lawyerly.”
Sales, utility, and parcel taxes are coming.
You deserve what you vote for.
Yeah, but you don’t necessarily deserve what other people voted for. The Anaheimers who will be hurt worst are most likely the least deserving ones.
The only positive out of this race, I can now return to speaking my mind.
Denise did NOT oppose the rainbow flag at City Hall, she opposed flying ANY non-governmental flag on gov flag poles in violation of City Ordinance. She had voted FOR display of the rainbow pride flag at City Hall on non-gov flag poles. Her votes were twisted and she was not permitted to defend herself to the DPOC.
I hope the DPOC comes to see how many West Anaheim constituents have been helped by Denise and are unlikely to receive that same assistance from someone who is expected to be in his OTHER gov office all day, and has no credible track record of involvement in the community to even tell him what West Anaheim’s true challenges are or how to fix them. HINT: It’s not a lack of business-friendly policies, or West Anaheim would not have exploded with new businesses during Denise’s term, including the Amazon distribution center which feeds the new program to distribute the 60,000 items Amazon determined Anaheim/region residents order most, within an hour or two, for FREE with Amazon Prime (which is not free, I know) this is not a convenience thing, this is a life-saving feature that keeps vulnerable populations out of exposure in public spaces! And yes, it means jobs and property taxes collected.
There are many solutions to the business issues in West Anaheim, but they require someone who will think outside the box and network those whose involvement is essential to resolve the problems. Is Diaz going to do that? Subsidizing businesses isn’t the answer, but someone outside City Hall who hasn’t done their homework isn’t going to know that, and he is in for a rude awakening regarding the limits of what a Council person can and cannot do.
As far as term limits, the City Charter allows public officials to serve TWO CONSECUTIVE TERMS in office. Period. It does not matter what office. So you can do 1 Council term and 1 Mayoral term, or 2 on Council or 2 as Mayor. But one cannot do 2 on Council then run for Mayor without sitting out a term. Jose Moreno is ineligible to run, as he will have served 2 terms even though it’s only been 6 years, because he had the shortened term. This also prevents Steve Faessel from running for Mayor from his Council position.
I think the Mayor should do ONE term of 6 years, which gives enough time to get things done (4 years not enough considering the glacial speed of government to go from idea to implementation) but keeps them from leveraging the office for reelection campaign mid-way, which is where so much destruction comes from. 6 years and out, want to run again, wait 6 years. But then, I am not in charge of anything, and this would require a Charter change anyway. And in a week I am out the door from the little bit I do handle.
I disagree about the doom and gloom diagnosis of Anaheim. It will be ugly to see this crowd strip us of assets, and feed the kleptocracy once again. But Anaheim is a resilient place, and we will survive and push back. I am not giving up on my hometown. I am not going anywhere. Don’t count Anaheim out.
Well, we hope we have Cynthia stories again going forward!
I hope that you’re right about Anaheim’s future, Cynthia — or at least more right than what I predict. But money has bought the vampire parasite donors an absolute lack of accountability — and I don’t see any agent out there who can impose it now except its people themselves — and who will organize them?
Sounds like you should just burn your whole city down Greg.
Why would Greg burn down Brea? THAT would be cray-cray!
Unfortunately, dry brush makes much of Brea especially vulnerable (but I like it as it is.)
“Chinook’s” comment may fall into the “too stupid to rebut” category, but: Disney and the Trades are the arsonists — though deadly parasitic vampires may be the better analogy.
Wealthy residents: (Bill Taormina?)
In attempting to verify online a recent recollection of info snagged (?) in passing, did my search go bad, or is he in truth a resident of Newport Beach (though still an Anaheim Business OWNER, and stakeholder ? or did Anaheim Mayor join the list of elected offices ( like State assembly and Congress) requiring only the rental of a vacant apartment (or like Anaheim boards and commissions, where a NON resident “business owner” is eligible ??
Actually I happen to know the answer. He owns two homes but he is registered to vote in Anaheim. At least, so he has told me.
Edgar Arellano made these graphics which get across a basic idea of how much the special interests spent in the Anaheim Council elections to get their candidates. But it only includes the spending that was reported as of Election Day. The FINAL WEEKS saw a lot more money spent, which won’t be reported till the end of the year or maybe even later. So eventually it’ll be even more dramatic. (Click for better view)
But even now you can see that the largest spending was:
713K to keep Stephen Faessel (÷ 11,160 votes = $64 per vote)
Vs. 16K to Batiste (÷ 3551 votes = $4.50 per vote)
and 3353 to Savrina (÷ 6440 = 52 cents per vote)
670K for Avelino (569K supporting him, plus 100K attacking Annemarie (÷ 7861 votes = $85 per vote)
Vs. 10K to Jeanine (÷ 3349 votes = $3 per vote)
and 7K to Annemarie (÷ 3541 votes = $2 per vote)
538K on Jose D (382K supporting him, plus 148K attacking Denise (÷ 7791 votes = $69 per vote)
Vs. 27K to Denise (÷ 6997 votes = $4 per vote)
and 14K to Balius (÷ 3653 votes = $4 per vote)
A lot of these figures will go up by the end of this month, because there was a LOT of last minute spending in the final weeks. (For one thing Savrina’s amaze-balls 52 cents per vote will change, going by the dozens of last-minute giant signs and mass robocalls on behalf of this candidate who was mainly backed by secret Faessel supporters Lou Correa and LuisAndres Perez.)
Also, remember how six years ago one of our arguments for district elections was it would give grassroots candidates a slightly better chance against corporate candidates who spent as much as (gasp) 200K to win? And then, in the first district election (2016) non-corporate candidates DID barely win? Well, the special interests responded to that threat by (at least) tripling or quadrupling their spending. It’s still worth it to them, to have this majority.