URBAN PACIFICATION: A day after “civil unrest” rocked Anaheim City Hall, Faubel Public Affairs, one of Orange County’s most politically-connected public relations firms, quickly approached city officials with a “crisis management proposal” to pacify the “Latino community.”
Less than 24-hours after more than 1,000 working-class Mexican residents took to the streets outside Anaheim City Hall to protest police brutality and misconduct, Faubel Public Affairs, one of the most politically-connected public relations firms in Orange County, quickly approached city officials with a “crisis management proposal” to pacify the “Latino community.”
According to an email dated Wednesday, July 25, 2012 that was obtained under a California Public Records Act request, Jonathan Volzke, a Senior Account Manager for Faubel, contacted Mayor Tom Tait and City Manager Bob Wingenroth to offer his firm’s services “in developing a strategy that will not only address the immediate crisis, but move the city and its residents toward a trusting relationship.”
Quote:
As experts in crisis management, Faubel Public Affairs would like to help the City of Anaheim develop and implement that plan. As a full service public relations firm, we have worked for the City in the past, notably in the campaign against the Angels’ effort change their name. We also worked to mobilize Anaheim’s Latino community with private clients.
Joining us in the effort would be Ybarra Company and Richard Ybarra, a highly experienced–and respected–community organizer with deep roots in the Latino community. He is the son-in-law of the late Cesar Chavez.
“We’d like to meet with you as soon as possible,” writes Volzke, “to discuss the next steps that need to be taken to stop the momentum of the crisis, move past it and on to the healing.”
Over the years, Faubel, which is run by Roger Faubel of Mission Viejo, has steadily forged close relationships with some of Orange County’s most powerful business and political elites.
Earlier this year, the Voice of OC said:
In addition to running his own PR firm, Faubel is a member of the Santa Margarita Water District Board of Directors and previously served on the Mission Viejo City Council.
According to his biography on the water district website, he also is an active member of the Orange County Taxpayers Association, whose board of directors is a Who’s Who of county political and business leaders. The current chairman is former Anaheim Mayor Curt Pringle, and board members include the Disney Resort, the Irvine Co., Chevron Corp. and other influential firms, lobbyists and organizations.
In 2010, the OC Metro reported that the Orange County Taxpayers Association entered into a contractual relationship with Faubel’s firm to do public relations work:
The Orange County Taxpayers Association , a nonprofit tax watchdog organization, has hired Faubel Public Affairs to amplify its mission and build its brand.
“This is a very exciting time for OCTax right now, and we are very much looking forward to the great improvements that Faubel Public Affairs will bring to the organization,” says Reed Royalty, OCTax founder and president.
In 2011, Brian Lochrie, one of Faubel’s employees, issued the press release announcing OCTax’s decision to appoint Pringle as chairman of that group.
Faubel’s ties to Pringle are nothing new and began as early as 2002 when his firm, then-called Waters & Faubel, was hired by Gigante, a multi-billion dollar Mexican grocery store chain, to put pressure on the City of Anaheim to allow the issuance of a permit to sell hard liquor at a supermarket it was opening up at the Anaheim Plaza.
As part of a well-orchestrated media blitz, Faubel’s business partner, Meg Waters, held a press conference and trotted out Pringle, at the time a mayoral candidate, to blast city officials for denying Gigante the right to peddle booze, arguing the company was a “good corporate citizen” and their action violates “free-enterprise principles.”
[For purposes of disclosure, the author of this article, Duane Roberts, is a candidate for Anaheim City Council]
Nice catch, Duane. The consultant class is the dirty secret of OC politics, and the way that politicos profit from their cronies when they are not being paid as “no-work” staffers by local politicians. Jordan Brandman, with his new PR firm, wants badly to join this chummy little circle.
I’m sorry that I even feel the need to ask this question as a result of this letter, but could you tell us more about Richard Ybarra and the “Ybarra Company”? How have they worked to “pacify” Latinos when previously hired — either in conjunction with Faubel PR or not? Have they been truthful with the community, or have they soaped over dissent?
Go to the OC Weekly website, type in the word “Gigante” in the search engine, and read all the articles that Gustavo Arrelano wrote about this matter. After you do that, you’ll get a better understanding of the kind of manipulative games that Faubel orchestrates on behalf of his well-heeled clients, which are mostly multi-billion dollar corporations or government entities. I should note that some of the information that Gustavo used in his pieces came from me, incidentally.
Perhaps I should have injected some analysis into this piece to help people like yourself understand where I’m coming from, but the gist of it is this: Faubel Public Relations, a public relations firm in bed with Orange County’s business and political elite–which is predominantly Anglo–is coming in with a proposal to manage the Anaheim crisis by bringing in a “Latino” who could be used a “token” to calm the Mexican masses down.
The “Ybarra Company” is a public relations firm set up by Richard Ybarra to mostly consultant business and political elites–most of whom are predominantly Anglo–on how to manage “problems” they are having with the “Latino community.” Basically, the white power structure to uses Ybarra as a “front man” to promote their interests–interests which might not benefit the “Latino community” as a whole.
Frankly, I consider this email to be absolutely pathetic.
If Ybarra weren’t Cesar Chavez’s son-in-law, it would not surprise me. As he is, it both surprises and saddens me, though mostly the latter.
His granddaughter does some good work, though!
Just the very notion that a PR Firm would propose ‘crisis management’ is disgusting! As if that would be of any value in terms of addressing the true underlying causes of social unrest.
I’m not entirely unsympathetic to it in a limited sense — both sides (most of us, anyway) wanted to avoid further rioting and bloodshed. The “unity march” on the 29th (or whatever it was called, the one that collected Namby Pamby politicians as well as actual concerned citizens from the neighborhood, that was supposed to but did not join with those of us at City Hall) is an example of “crisis management” that doesn’t offend me, although it doesn’t necessarily impress me either. Trying to convince people that they’re not getting the fecal end of the sharp stick, when they are, does offend me.
The We Are/Somos Anaheim March was grassroots/social media driven. It did not have a well connected PR firm with a shady past in city affairs steamrolling it.
I didn’t say that it did. I just said that it’s the kind of thing that I could imagine falling into the category of “crisis management.” Given some of the politicians and others who participated, I don’t think it ended up being entirely “grassroots,” but that’s just an observation rather than a criticism.