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Pressure has apparently been building on Anaheim Councilman Jordan Brandman to reverse his vote on which of Anaheim’s newly created election districts will come up for election in 2016, versus in 2018. Brandman joined Republicans Kris Murray and Lucille Kring in rejecting Mayor Tom Tait’s motion that the three most Latino districts in the city be among those to have elections in 2016.
Tait’s motion respected the intent of the settlement of a voting rights lawsuit and was proposed by every single member of the public who spoke during the public hearing. It was rejected by a 3-2, in which Tait was joined by a fellow Republican, James Vanderbilt. Instead, the majority assigned the only district with an actual majority of Latino voters, District 3, to a non-Presidential election year two years later in which Latino voting is expected to be comparatively depressed.
Brandman has faced opposition on Facebook and elsewhere from former City Council candidate Dr. Jose Moreno, the official Democratic candidate whom Brandman refused to endorse last year in favor of Republicans Kris Murray and Gail Eastman, and longtime DPOC activist and former Resolutions Committee Chair Jeff LeTourneau, among others. They have argued that this move is a clear attempt to undercut decades of community activism and the results of a recent lawsuit, filed by Moreno, Amin David, and Consuelo Garcia, to strengthen the ability to Latinos to achieve long-delayed self-representation on Anaheim’s City Council.
Brandman has apparently heard the voices of his protesters — and has decided to turn tail and run. As Anaheim’s highest Democratic elected official, he was slated to give the welcoming address at Saturday’s Democratic Party of Orange County (DPOC) annual awards banquet, the Truman Dinner, which will be held at the Anaheim Hilton. OJB has learned that he has now canceled his participation in the Truman Dinner, and in fact will not attend the dinner at all. (So, there’s another ticket available to anyone who wants it.)
Brandman was apparently concerned about the prospect of facing protests, including possibly being booed while on stage, from the many members and supporters of DPOC who have been shocked by his decision to postpone for two more years the day when Central Anaheim, the most Latino portion of the city, can choose its own representative.
LeTourneau has stated that several members of the DPOC Central Committee plan to use a special emergency procedure to bypass its (currently moribund) Resolutions Committee. They will bring up a resolution at next Monday’s monthly meeting to demand that Brandman heed the wishes of Anaheim’s Latinos and reverse his vote — allowing all three Latino majority or plurality districts to vote during the 2016 Presidential contest.
Increasing pressure is now being applied on those who have endorsed Brandman to remove their endorsements — an effort that is expected to intensify greatly if Brandman sticks with the fellow members of his Council majority. Word is that several people who have endorsed Brandman are worried that their continued support for Brandman under these circumstances would be perceived as showing indifference to one of the most important issues currently facing Latinos in all of Orange County. This of course includes the 46th Congressional District, the race in which Brandman is opposed by Joe Dunn, Lou Correa, and Bao Nguyen.
DAMINIG!
Facebook posts! Jordan is DONE!
I also heard that there was a picture of him on instagram that is SO embarassing.
What’s next OJB? Are you gonna get Jordan and Connors KIK accounts?
GROW UP. Your childish political behavior is unbecoming of this site. Thats saying a lot given it’s rich history of favortisim and maligning candidates and political figures!
(Vern, remember what I told you about some batches of comments? Email me about this one.)
Right, nothing significant — like the organization of this sort of opposition campaign — ever happens online.
Thank you for your trolling. It’s been delightful.
Point of order question here; as I read this, it seems to me that this may be obfuscating the decision in the lawsuit and may be grounds for legal action. Can anyone comment on that?
I will have no further comment at this time.
Jeez, another text from Dan Chmielewski. Blessed are those, like Greg, who have him blocked.
Dan wants EVERYBODY to know that the only reason Jordan’s skipping the Truman Dinner is that he’s come down with STREP THROAT.
This is a doctor’s note from Dan C. If you find it credible at all, Greg, you might incorporate it as a postscript.
Both could be true of course – it is whispered that participating in intentional disenfranchisement can weaken your immunity to such infections.
Who appointed Dan as Jordan’s keeper?
Guy can’t handle his business himself?
#embarassing
If I find it credible at all, I will. It’s not that it’s implausible, it’s that it’s Chumley. If Jordan wanted to get that sort of message to me, it would come from almost any other source.
Jordan has gone into hiding, only because falsely accusing his critics of being “homophobic and sexist” won’t fly with the Truman Dinner crowd like it did with that resident of West Anaheim Jordan dressed down for having the audacity to call him on the carpet for his reprehensible behavior in aiding his buddy Connor’s hostile takeover of the West Anaheim Neighborhood Council. Frankly that performance was so overdone that he used up his monthly allotment of “drama queen” for November, so he is unable to duplicate the “distract and deflect” tactic for the Dems who claim him. And for the record I was calling Jordan a drama queen long before he came out of the closet, so save the accusations of slurs against Boy Wonder.
Increasingly Jordan refuses to take responsibility for his own bad behavior, often using his position as one-of-three to play the bully to gain an unfair advantage in decisions where logic and reason fail to justify their votes! Or he falls back on character attack to get around having to answer for his behavior, and now in setting up the system that skips HIS OWN DISTRICT he in effect refuses to face a viable opponent, as this forces him to move to another district to retain a Council seat, getting him out of a run off with Jose Moreno, and the near certain knowledge of having the daylights beat out of him by the guy who DID win the Central Anaheim area in 2014! Had 2014 been a by-districts race, as it should have been had the Murray Majority not farted around stalling while burning through our tax dollars for legal fees to defend the indefensible, Jose Moreno would be a seated Council member today, representing District 3. And Jordan Brandman KNOWS IT. Hell no he doesn’t want to face Moreno in a fair fight, and now he won’t even face his own party to answer for screwing an entire section of the City just to get out of facing a real opponent! The citizens of District 3 elected Jose Moreno, but those votes were overcome by the rest of the city’s desires, in the perfect imagery of disenfranchisement, which would also have been the result if we had gone the Murray Santa Ana model. Now the citizens of District 3 will have to wait an additional 2 years so Brandman can protect his lily white Council seat. Nope, nothing to see here…
Now I am not sure if there is a legal premise here, but I am going to toss this half-baked theory out and see what happens, because I think the outcome of this bizarre shift for an answer NOBODY outside the City Council asked for not only hurts District 3 but also hurts District 2 while claiming to offer them “representation.” Roll with me and see if you agree?
Lucille Kring said 10 people showed up to speak. True. Lucille Kring said District 2 is in desperate need of attention, and that is also true. But Lucille missed that NOT ONE of those 10 speakers (some I understand do live in District 2) asked for the chance to be represented directly in 2016, and instead they ALL requested the line up which became the Mayor’s motion. In essence the people of District 2, either by omission by not showing up to speak, or by commission by showing up and asking for Districts other than their own be up first, agreed to be represented until 2018 by the At Large leadership of Kris Murray, James Vanderbilt, and the still At Large Mayor. And yet, the Council majority will force an election, and a new leader, onto constituents who didn’t ask for that outcome in 2016 and are likely not yet prepared for that scenario until 2018!
In the absence of a single resident of District 2 asking for direct representation in 2016, much less stating they wished to run and are ready for a race in 2016, it is entirely possible that any grass roots leaders identified for a potential seat desire additional time to learn the ropes, build a war chest, allow school age children to finish their education before having life disrupted, or whatever perfectly valid reasons many citizens delay a run for office they may be interested in, but not right now.
If permitting the At Large representation that two Districts will have to accept anyway would offer District 2 the breathing room or “incubation period” needed to develop their own home grown heroes into viable candidates, then forcing an election they are not ready for in effect disenfranchises them AGAIN as it opens the door for carpetbagging outsiders to now block the next 4 years of opportunity from true neighborhood leaders who might be ready in 2018! That means District 2 does not get true local representatives until 2020!
Since Jordan has refused, in an open and public meeting with his own publicly cast and duly reported vote, to run for reelection for his own Council seat in the District where he currently resides, I think it is time for Jordan to announce he will be stepping down from the City Council in 2016 and not seeking a seat in another District. Should Brandman relocate and pull papers for the District 2 seat as expected, he has set himself up to push out any less experienced grassroots leaders truly from the ‘hood, AND intimidating any grassroots leadership not carrying the massive war chest accumulated for the laughable goal of taking Loretta’s seat from power hitters Dunn or Correa (can you say, not in the same league? ) The idea of true local representation is not a chess game for the amusement of the permanent political class like Brandman (and his toady in training Traut) who believe that a win at all costs in support of their own agendas is perfectly justified no matter what wreckage is left in their wake, as their ambitions supersede the collateral damage of those who are NOT represented by those who know and understand their area and are working toward the best interests of their area rather than the best interests of those able to help them leap frog to their next position! It is time for Jordan Brandman to announce his resignation from City Council, rather than take a seat from a truly home grown leader by use of bogus administrative hijinks. And Connor Traut should resign his West Anaheim Neighborhood Council seat for the same reasons, and permit a truly fair election to take place to bring in a leader who knows and works for the best of the area. While at it, they both need to apologize to the people of West Anaheim for greatly abusing a system that residents desperate for genuine help were counting on to help make life better for them, because it is near certain neither Jordan nor Connor will do a damned thing for the good of the community while they turn that seat into a puppet show. And Jordan needs to apologize to the woman from West Anaheim (i am very sorry i did not catch her name) because his false accusations to cover his own refusal to be held accountable just plain sucked. And no, THAT is not a homophobic slur either, and I will not go home and pray about it, Jordan.
Well, there was ONE District 2 resident and perennial candidate who asked for 1-2-4-5, the only person to raise a cheer for the Council’s decision – goofy Rudy Gaona. Still, point(s) taken.
I believe that Rudy’s an announced candidate. But as I missed the early speeches, I was relying on Kring’s expressed total. If he did go against the Coalition on this, that’s a lot of earlier work on his part down the drain. If he did so, I’m surprised.
I reviewed the video. He didn’t express an opinion or ask for anything related to the choice of districts at all. He thanks Murray and Kring for various things, such as support of veterans. Then as he left, he came back for a moment and noted that he was from District 2.
Oh. I remembered differently. SOMEBODY said 1-2-4-5. Who was it if it wasn’t Rudy?
And he did raise the lone cheer after the kleptos’ vote.
“Now the citizens of District 3 will have to wait an additional 2 years so Brandman can protect his lily white Council seat. Nope, nothing to see here…”
Not if the activists get that decision overturned and if not I honestly think they have good chance of recalling him.
And Cynthia what exactly is this West Anaheim council that Connor trout is taking over? what effect dos that have at city hall and whats the big deal and why don’t the residents of west Anaheim send him packing?
Here’s everything you need to know on that, Paul, from the Cunningham blog — be sure to read comments as well:
http://www.anaheimblog.net/2015/10/28/democratic-party-campaign-to-take-back-anaheim-is-underway/
Hard to know who to support here, different flavors of bad guys from my point of view. Hyper-partisan Klepto-connected Democrat interlopers taking over a Neighborhood Council in a sneaky way from a group of anti-immigrant, anti-districting, Kring-clinging Republicans. At least the latter have been committed neighborhood activists on the West side for many years; the Traut-Brandman contingent are carpetbaggers.
I read that and it seems to me these councils at the neighborhood levels just seem like a set of representatives from the council with their cronies on them.
Any changes to the selection of Districts to be DISENFRANCHISED IN TIME (funny as a byproduct of a process alledged to REMEDY disenfranchisement, not REDISTRIBUTE it !) should be done by RANDOM LOT, as it SHOULD have been done to start, if at all, and COULD possibly be done by any future Court Ruling.
In a City of 350,000 with voter registration about half, HOW can polling participation of a self-interested audience (remember Eastman and the Construction Union packed CC Expansion audience?)not breaking 10 let alone 1%, be inferred, without a FULL Public vote, to have ANY RELATION to “democratic choice” ?? HOW did “SOME Peoples Map” get recast as “THE Peoples Map” ? Absurd ! REFORM, or REVENGE ???
With no mechanism YET announced to produce and EDUCATE the desperately needed pool of CANDIDATES to fill the newly expanded Ballot (Pleas for reactivation of the Future Officeholder Training incarnation of THE FORMER “Leadership Anaheim” have so far met deaf ears). Does it matter to the NON agenda-driven part of the electorate, who only have dreams of a well-run city, not a crony capital, to argue HOW the pie is cut, when MOST slices will be a mix of the SAME old dull political tools (now relocated), carpet-baggers, and neophytes who will be needed to deftly swing the blade of reform, but instead will have enough trouble AVOIDING those swung by the Crony Puppets?
The last minute district change saved me the trouble of exploring relocation in district to preserve my rights to even a (sole) vote in 2016 (good enough for candidates, right?) but sadly also opened my mind to “voting with my feet” on a larger scale. THAT always works.
Sweet black jesus, somebody’s been reading Greg Diamond’s Primer and Meditations on Gratuitously Lengthy Prose brought to you by Greg Diamond (self published, 2400 pages).
Not me. But tell us how you can judge “brevity is the soul of wit” without having a soul or a wit ? What’s that ? You can manage it with HALF a wit? Well, GOOD JOB, then !
Lol, he was reacting to Cynthia’s novella, but wordpress plopped his comment down here.
That being the case, I’ll retract my post (unless CW wants to recycle it !).
Nah, it’s fine, Nipsey can handle it.
I had a lot on my mind. Nipsey is welcome to not read it. I won’t be offended.
I know you love me, nipper; it’s ok if you can’t say it out loud.
Im surprised we haven’t been treated to a nice rolling spinning diatribe from jordans spokesman yet.
“STREP! HAVE YOU NO DECENCY, SIR? STRRRRRRRREP!!!”
Also, you may be homophobic.
I doubt it. Brandman’s sexual orientation is pretty much the best thing about him.
Oh, don’t worry– he posted one.
Take a look at this Custom Cut Gem by Dan: “If you want to start lecturing people about being a good Democrat, time to start acting like one.”
I mean, does he seriously not understand the critique being leveled? Is it actually possible to be THAT disconnected from reality?
Unfreakingbelievable.
If you read it to yourself in the voice of Baghdad Bob it actually almost makes 1% sense. Almost.