Fitz Can Be Bigoted – But Are His Assertions Against Murray and Eastman Valid?

I stopped paying much attention to what Mayoral Candidate and gadfly — “gadfly” is practically his new first name — Denis Fitzgerald had to say almost a year ago.

A year ago is when a desperate Kris Murray successfully used Fitz’s gutter mouth to change the subject away from the City Council’s dirty-seeming dealings in the Angels Stadium case.  (Disclosure: while I’m the attorney for the plaintiff, CATER, in that case, I am not writing here in that capacity, but rather as a political observer.)  When I’ve attended Anaheim Council meetings in the past half-year, I’ve generally left the room when he speaks, as my own protest against his squandering his often strong critiques with language that steals their thunder.  (Unless I’m involved in another conversation, though, I can still hear him over the speakers in City Hall.  He has a booming voice.)

Nevertheless, that Fitz can be a bigot — sometimes homophobic, sometimes based on race or nationality, but mostly a sexist, with a penchant for calling the Councilmembers “whores,” which he defends as being an accurate deployment of the term’s metaphorical sense of “selling oneself for money” — does not mean that specific charges that he’s made are necessarily false.

I’d heard that Fitz had cleaned up his act a bit in preparation for his current race for Mayor — in which he’ll surely finish fourth.  (He’d be third on my list: regardless of his grammar-school bad-boy manners, I’d still prefer him to Lucille Kring because he’s not a soulless ghoul when it comes to the rights of victims of excessive use of force by police.  Fitz, like everyone else in the Mayor’s race except Kring, believes in civil rights.  If he did become Mayor, though, I’d like to see him fitted with a shock collar and I would be happy to push the button as needed.)  I had to check out the video of the Anaheim City Council’s Sept. 9 meeting because part of it was useful for some trial prep in one of CATER’s cases against the City.  I saw that Fitz spoke early in the Public Comments Section, so I decided to give it a whirl.

Fitz’s speech was surprisingly obscene invective-free (although some non-obscene invective remained) — and the assertions he makes and questions he raises do indeed demand answers.  And, by gum, Gail Eastman answered them, after a fashion, right after he spoke!  So I thought that it’s worth presenting both those questions and her answers — along with an Instructive Interlude — to the larger public to get your collective thoughts.

Mayor Candidate Denis Fitzgerald has been known to hurl offensive vitriol from the Public Comments podium like an overgrown 11-year-old boy testing a babysitter’s patience — but he also makes some specific charges against the Council majority that could still be true regardless of his bad deportment. Well, ARE THEY TRUE?  Read on!

I’m presenting his posts as, more or less, a kind of poetry — broken down into sentences and clauses — because it makes them more fun and easier to read and comment upon.  To see the entire video yourself, go to the Anaheim Council meeting videos at anaheim.net (bottom right of the web page), click “videos,” and then click the meeting video for Sept. 9, 2014.  (I’d put my own comments in Angels Red for visibility, but because some of my DPOC colleagues would accuse me of getting subliminally Republican, instead I’ll use a neutral purple.)  Now here’s Fitz!

Denis Fitzgerald, Public Comment, 9/9/14 Council Meeting, 29:50 mark on video

• Anaheim Streets are in a condition of disrepair.

• This is caused by two present Anaheim City Council members, Kris Murray and Gail Eastman, who are running for re-election this November.

• Both Murray and Eastman have for years been advisory members of the Disneyland/SOAR political organization.

• In fact. Gail Eastman was the Committee’s Co-Chairman.

• The parent [sic] purpose of Disneyland/SOAR is to use financial and other methods for Disney to gain control of the Anaheim City Council…

• … So that Anaheim tax funds can be used to benefit Disneyland instead of the children and residents of Anaheim.

“Used to benefit Disneyland…” — what does Fitz have in mind here?  Is it the $200 million ARTIC Train Station?  The “fixed path” Streetcar, designed to (after wiping out some long-lived businesses in its path) take people from that area to across the street from Disney?  (“Across the street” allows them to maintain the fiction that it’s not TAKING THEM TO DISNEY ITSELF, which would be useful in staving off Disney being a Defendant if, oh, someone was killed in an accident involving the streetcar.  (It does mean people having to cross Harbor Blvd, but seriously — WHO DRIVES ON HARBOR BLVD. ANYMORE THESE DAYS?)  Or is he talking about the $500,000,000 spent on the “Mickey and Friends” parking garage — from which the City does not share in any of the fees! — or the sweet deals where Disney’s property tax, sales tax, and transient occupancy (hotel) tax are channeled back into paying off the bonds THAT WENT TO BENEFIT DISNEY (see that half-billion dollar parking garage above) rather that staying in the General Fund to pay for police and parks, and where Disney is willing to call down the minions of hell (NOT the cute minions of Despicable Me) if anyone starts talking about imposing even a modest a gate tax?  Or maybe he’s talking about the City (or at least its residents) bearing the cost of medical services for harm caused by toxic heavy metals from Disney’s fireworks.

• Last year, Kris Murray and Gail Eastman voted $30 million of our Anaheim street repair money to be used only for the unneeded Disneyland ARTIC Train Station instead of for the repairs of our street[s].

• Now, one year later, the horrible condition of Anaheim streets are becoming obvious.

• The Disney Corporation gives financial compensation to Anaheim Council members such as Murray and Eastman…

• …To encourage their voting millions of dollars of our tax money to benefit Disneyland.

• Murray and Eastman have been [given] Disney VIP passes for free entries and meals for up to five guests per day at any Disney Theme Part worldwide.

• Gail Eastman has admitted under oath of receiving over $300,000 in just one year from the Disney Corporation in free admissions to Disneyland for her family and friends.

“LOOK OUT! HE’S GOT A SHEAF!”

• And in return, they, uh, essentially, in return it’s – the real problem is that Murray and Eastman will be paying back Disneyland …

• … by voting hundred of millions of our tax money to benefit Disneyland.

• We ask Anaheim voters: in order to save Anaheim from Disneyland control, do not re-elect Murray and Eastman to the Anaheim City Council this November.  Thank you for your time.

Now just an egg-sucking second here.  “Disneyland control”?  I mean, yes, Disneyland does seem to have a “hand up the puppet” sort of relationship with SOAR — “Resort District” means nothing if it doesn’t mean “Disneyland” — but is even SOAR really trying to “control” Anaheim politics?

Wait — wait — this just in — probably in your mailbox, if you’re from Anaheim:

This mail piece endorsing the running SOAR slate is literally too large to be scanned using the equipment in a normal home office. It seems to have been sent to LOTS OF HOMES — and therefore OJB will have the pleasure of pulling it apart in an extended series we will call … PAINFUL SOAR.

In PAINFUL SOAR, we’ll look through ALL of the numbers (within reason) regarding how much the “Resort District Gives Back” — which, given the tax breaks and subsidies, is even less than you’d think, and given the creative accounting going on is probably even less than you’d think POSSIBLE. And we’ll talk about that juicy bon-bon in at the bottom in Blue — the ATID — that the Council Majority ITSELF doesn’t understand!

By the way: because this slick brochure — this isn’t even the whole thing! — was LITERALLY TOO BIG TO SCAN, OJB has used the “Poor Person’s Scanner” technique — taking a color photo an stretching it into shape using Photoshop. When you see distortions in the image, that’s our responsibility. When you see distortions in the TEXT, that’s SOAR’S responsibility!

What (if anything) do you have to do to be a member of SOAR? Why, that’s a very interesting question! Another interesting question is: if the profits from an “economic engine” DON’T go to Anaheim itself, and instead largely go to people and businesses OUTSIDE OF the City, is it really ANAHEIM’S economic engine? And did they leave an “L” out of “Growling”?

OK — uh, maybe SOAR does get a lot of finger-waggling from Disney to make its lips move.  Anyway — all that aside, let’s go back to the meeting, where Gail Eastman had been waving for the Mayor’s attention.

Tait: Councilmember Eastman, what did you want to say?

Councilwoman Gail Eastman, Council Counter-Comment, 9/9/14 Council Meeting, 33:30 mark on video

• Yes, I would just like to clarify, uh, that, uh, Mr. Fitzgerald is one of those people that likes to take advantage of the fact that you can say anything you want at our podium.

• However, the information he gives out regarding Mayor Pro Tem Murray and myself is patently false.

We’ll see.  But first, this really happened.

Then again, perhaps she was just trying to push away the taste of ashes.

• Uh, and the actual record that he reads from is the proof that all of those walks into Disneyland were paid for by me.

• So if he would research to the end of that he would see that, that those were all paid for.

• And those were all people that were walked into Disneyland from the community, by me, and I paid for it out of my pocket.

• So I just want to make that clear in case someone that might be viewing this and hasn’t seen his performance before would have a clear understanding of that.

• Uh, and I am not receiving any compensation from Disney in any way.  Thank you.  [34:03]

AND SHE STICKS THE LANDING! Mission Accomplished!

Oh, no.  

No, no, no.  That sets off every piece of radar equipment in the array.

(Here, those of you old enough to remember the character just have to read what I’m writing in the voice of Peter Falk as Columbo.)

Thank you, Councilwoman.  Uh, before I go, there’s just one thing that still bothers me.

You see, you and others on the City Council and Staff have made a great deal about Disneyland being a different legal entity than SOAR.  So, when a person in your position specifies that you’ve never taken any “compensation from Disney in any way,” that leaves two questions in my mind.

First, that could be true if whatever you received didn’t come from Disney itself — but from SOAR.  And if Disney does have effective control of SOAR — something that can be nailed down, you know — then that may be a distinction without a difference.  Think about a RED PASS, Councilwoman.

And if you got something of value from Disney or SOAR that wasn’t “compensation” — you weren’t an employee or a contractor, but were maybe gifts in appreciation of your sitting on a corporate board — then your statement would still be true as well, whether you took in $4000, or $12,000, or even if you took home literally hundreds of thousands of dollars.

And before you think of going in this direction, Councilwoman, having received a whole bunch of money and then having to pay it back to avoid legal trouble doesn’t mean that you never received it — because between the time that you received it and the time you paid it back there was ALREADY the opportunity for a “quid pro quo.”

And then there’s the question of how you paid it back if you did pay it back.  If you got into some hot water at some point, as the recent or current or soon-to-be Chair of the SOAR Advisory Committee, did Disney REALLY just abandon you?  Or did they “help out” somehow?

What did Fitzgerald really get his hands on there, Councilwoman?  Don’t worry, we’re almost done.

Next — and this it just theoretical, you understand — if you knew that some outside organization was going to dump hundreds of thousands of dollars — heck, maybe even a million dollars — into an “Independent Expenditure” for your campaign for re-election, are you still confident that you didn’t get “anything like” the sort of compensation you describe above?

Finally, there’s this — and this will cheer up your Republican voters, or the Republicans who would have voted for you without any unpleasant facts getting in the way.  It’s your choice of tense that you used just before you gave that big smile and, if you were a young African American rapper, would have dropped the mic to the floor.

Do you get what I’m talking about, Councilwoman?

“I am not receiving any compensation….”  And then you smiled really wide.

Oh yeah, that present tense.  It’s classic.  “There is no relationship with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.”  It’s almost like you memorized how to say it right.

So all I’m saying, Councilwoman, is that — putting aside of whether this slick and widely mailed-out mailer from SOAR counts as “compensation” — your statement leaves open the question of whether you ever did receive any compensation in the past.  Because that is when the problem would have occurred — right, Councilwoman?

Now, I’m not making any accusations here — I’m just pointing out how your answer, in the context of your strange claim about having paid back at least several thousand dollars (and could it really be $300,000?) for taking people to Disneyland using your Red Pass or whatever it was, leaves me wondering whether, at the end of your short statement, you really should have been smiling so brightly.

To be continued.  This is all very, very much to be continued.  So much to say, so little time before voting begins!