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This is adapted from my Council meeting speech of Sept. 27; as Cynthia observed later: “Kris Murray did not have the city attorney rebut your claim. If they had legal opposition she would have said so. To stay quiet means they know you are right.”
Rejoice, Anaheim! Look up, and lift up your hearts, for the day of your redemption draweth nigh. May I present … The CHARTER GAFFE OF 2014!
I direct you to paragraph 3 of section 511 of our latest City Charter, approved by voters in November of 2014, and effective beginning in February of last year. This was part of the long dense text of Measure C, which was full of nasty surprises and secrets that nobody noticed, but also contained this remarkable gaffe:
Unless a higher vote is required by other provisions of this Charter, the affirmative votes of at least four members of the City Council shall be required for the enactment of any ordinance or resolution, or for the making or approving of any order for the payment of money.
No doubt the writers intended this paragraph to refer to the time AFTER we have seven council members, at the end of this year. But this whole section doesn’t specify WHEN it goes into effect, so it literally went into effect in February of last year with the rest of the charter.
(And who knows? Maybe clever voters realized this, and wanted extra protection from the abuses of the three-member majority through 2013-14.)
In any case, you know what this means, don’t you? All of the terrible 3-2 votes this council has made in the last year and a half are NULL AND VOID. They either need to be taken again before the end of the year with the hope of getting four votes, or put off until the next council takes office, or possibly just discarded and forgotten. That would include:
- July’s giveaway of $565 million in future taxes to Disney and Hong Kong-based Wincome Inc to build three unneeded four-diamond hotels – NULL AND VOID!
- The hotelier subsidy policy itself which undergirded that giveaway and possible future ones – NULL AND VOID!
- The exemption of Disney from a gate tax for the next 30 to 45 years – NULL AND VOID!
- The rezoning of 7 acres of parklands in district 3 to industrial – NULL AND VOID!
- Whatever rotten deal the council majority is cooking up with the Angels before November, might as well not bother.
- Also NULL AND VOID, unfortunately, is the STR ban, although that’s not a big deal, it can be redone. But that brings us to the ironic climax of who we have to thank for the discovery of this gaffe:
FORMER COUNCILWOMAN GAIL EASTMAN, who wanted to be allowed to continue running an STR, and sued her own city, leading to her clever lawyer discovering this CHARTER GAFFE OF 2014. Gail, we thank you, and we hope your lawsuit succeeds.
Don’t worry, the two best votes of this year will still stand because they were unanimous: The People’s Map and the sequencing that went with it; and we get to keep the Rainbow Flag!
ANAHEIM! If you want to make sure this CHARTER GAFFE is taken properly to its conclusion, and all disastrous votes of the last two years rendered null and void, VOTE FOR:
- JOSE IN DISTRICT 3,
- ARTURO IN DISTRICT 4,
- MARK DANIELS IN DISTRICT 1,
- AND MY DEAR WIFE DONNA IN DISTRICT 5.
On Ferris Wheel at St. Anthony Claret’s 2015 carnival; picture by Julie Tait.
On that note, everyone please come to me and Donna’s fundraiser concert this Saturday at 3, at the Unitarian Church on Harbor, featuring myself on piano, the great Weapons of Mass Creation, and other surprise guests. And rejoice in the CHARTER GAFFE OF 2014!
In this scenario the stricter STR regulations as well as the ban on future STRs would still stand as it was a 5-0 vote.
Yep.
Gail’s lawyer is as dumb as she is.
So what happens now?
Gail’s lawyer did a fine job. He wasn’t hired to protect and preserve two years of klepto votes. He was hired to keep Gail in the STR business.
But he didn’t. As Jeanine notes, the STR revocation got all 5 votes. Threshold met.
Sooooo. The existing STRs, including Eastman’s shaky operation would have to install fire sprinklers, etc.. That may be even more expensive than dopey Gail’s legal fees.
The upside is that this is STILL a 2016 ampaign issue.
It’s the best of all worlds, Team Pringle loses, and so does Gail Eastman.
are you serious about these being null and void? Im in stitches is this really true?
I am presuming that you meant to refer to Fitz as “homophobic” rather than “homosexual” and have changed that accordingly. If he’s going to hunt you down, I’d prefer that it happened after the election. But hey, if you want to change it back, it’s your blog!
No. I meant what I wrote. I wanted to use the same dumb language on him that he uses all the time on Jordan. This is the way I read it last night. Just go ahead and take out the Fitz phrase, I’m away from my computer.
If Fitz wants to beat me up, he’ll see me at tomorrow’s big SOAR protest at The Catch. Everyone be there at 5! Come protest the kleptocracy, and watch Vern and Fitz fight!
Some problems with this:
First, Tait brought it up at (if memory serves) the previous meeting in the course of opposing something nasty — and (if memory still serves) Peletier had some explanation of why it didn’t apply to the Council. It will be on the video. I am not looking it up myself, but anyone is welcome to do so.
Second, I don’t know that the revocation “ab initio” of those 3-2 votes since December 2014 would be self-executing. (I’m sure that the current Council majority and Staff would fight that to the bitter end.) Two things that might limit it would be (a) some sort of limitation on the time period allowed for a declaratory judgment and injunction seeking revocation of Charter violations and (b) arguments (likely backed up by lawsuits) that the counterparties to or beneficiaries of such agreements relied on them in order to make their own plans and now have a vested interest in the legislation being preserved.
The biggest threat to bring such a lawsuit is also the one with the greatest comic potential: Disney would have to come to court and argue that it’s big plans for expansion would truly not have gone ahead in the absence of the Gate Tax and/or the Hotel Subsidy. It would be a great time for expert witnesses and those who love them. But golly — Disney’s experts would have to be selling a pretty darn unlikely story.
I can think of at least one local watchdog group that might have standing to bring such a legal action.
I would love to challenge the economic model Disney puts forward to demonstrate neither project would have proceeded.
Seriously. Love.
What it’ll take is a council majority two months from now that is willing to instruct a City Attorney Talley (whoops did I say that?) to pursue this to its conclusion.
And this council majority is totally do-able, if enough of you come out to vote.
Im assuming eastman can say bye bye to disney and cunninghams support.
Im curious to check out the Weapons of Mass Creation this Saturday!
They are really cool. Beautiful music and singing alternating with rapping. They made a great song about the first guy to get killed by Anaheim police this year, poor unarmed Gustavo Najera.
Here’s their soundcloud link: https://soundcloud.com/womc714/weapons-of-mass-creation-progress-in-the-struggle-featuring-oscar-peanuts
Gail Eastman has already filled and ‘intention’ to run for the 3rd district city council in 2018 (providing the 3rd district is a two year seat)
and that’s a one-in-four straw-drawing chance right
Lotsa fun this evening, celebrating the wondrous SOAR at the glitzy Catch Restaurant! Clockwise from lower left, me as Lucille Kring, Leo Ramirez as Steven Albert Chavez Lodge, Carlos Becerra as Steven Faessel, and Mark Daniels as Jordan Brandman. Picture by Donna. Oh yeah, Fitzy was there, but he just laughed about me calling him gay, no fisticuffs ensued.
And let’s not forget the lovely trinkets created, brought along, and distributed by the Robbins’ anti-STR crowd:
I need one of those vampire signs for my SOAR collection.
Vern… this “needs 4 votes” change was not Measure C (which was approved in June 2014) it was the result of the Measure L and M approvals of November in which the Council was expanded to 6 plus Mayor.
I am no lawyer and never played on on TV, but from the bit I have learned from the 3 stinking years of litigation from the Kleptocracy’s flunkies preventing access to public records, I suspect the following to be true:
Someone would likely need to sue to enforce the 4 vote approval. I don’t see that just automatically happening. And even if a Council majority wanted to rescind the votes retroactively due to this mess, the Agenda would post Friday and Injunctions from those involved would be served Monday morning.
But the worst part is that I believe every one of these very, very well-heeled entities would have the right to participate as “parties in interest” or some such thing, and each and every one would be filing multiple motions on a daily basis to BURY any Plaintiffs in paper and run up their legal bills (not that I know anything about THAT either.) So anyone taking this on for the greater good is taking on Disney and WIncome and anyone else who has a benefit from those less-than-4-votes, and while there are certainly law firms out there who COULD take that on, how many are willing to suffer the wrath of Disney to do it? yeah, I hear crickets chirping. If any out there reading this DO happen to run such a law firm and are interested, you can reach me easily online. That is not a blanket offer to act as Plaintiff, but I sure would like to hear from someone with the pockets and cojones for that case. We could find someone to sign on. Easily.
“I need one of those vampire signs for my SOAR collection.”
If you’re talking about the trinkets, I’ll bring you one at the concert fundraiser tomorrow.
I’ll fix that Measure C gaffe. Damn, I hate making gaffes. This is my Charter Gaffe Gaffe.
The 24 acres at beach n lincoln is that also effected and reversed by this gaffe?
Hey, just saw Lou Noble’s video of our SOAR protest, and it’s really good! Some parts near the middle are a little boring but the first half, and especially the finale are great…