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At the July 12, 2016 City Council Meeting, the Anaheim City Council is getting ready to do something that you don’t see every day: giving away $500,000,000.00 — otherwise known as a half-billion dollars, in this case by in forgiving future TOT/bed taxes — to induce two Chinese companies and one Disney Corporation to build 4-star hotels that they would be building anyway.
Really, it’s sort of breathtaking. The gaping hole that $500 million will put in the budget won’t really even be felt until the bare three-person majority that is expected to vote for it is termed out of the City Council. They will get the personal benefit of shoveling that much money to the corporate patron that they have served on the Council, but they won’t pay the cost of it. That cost will fall upon a poorer and more Latino city.
They, unless one of them gets elected Mayor or something, get to make a clean getaway — to the Assembly, to the State Senate, to the Board of Supervisors or other County position, or to Congress. There’s a perverse sort of beauty to the deadly simplicity of the plan. Pillage for the patron — and prosper.
Don’t most people want to be part of something bigger than themselves? The seven losers in the ad are achieving that: they are part of one of the biggest heists around.
A group with the unsubtle name of “Stop Disney” has put out a couple of videos in recent days that are worth a watch.
First, here’s Mayor Tom Tait having a nice logical talk about what’s going on.
And next, here’s a tart response to an ad put out by pro-Disney Giveaway forces:
The story is getting some national attention now. Here’s Robert Reich, on top of it with his incisive commentary:
The July 12 meeting is going to be big — and potentially deadly — for Anaheim. If you have an opinion to offer, you can write Lday@anaheim.net. And if you can figure out why Lucille Kring — the red-headed stepchild who, unlike Brandman and Murray, will be abandoned by Disney the moment she’s no longer useful to them — would provide the deciding vote for this big-spending and unnecessary giveaway, we’d be interested in seeing your explanations in comments.
” And next, here’s a tart response to an ad put out by pro-Disney Giveaway forces:…”
I just have white space. Is my browser (IE9, yeah, I KNOW..) missing something ? (Other video embed is OK.) You can wipe this if / after fixing something-
I substituted in a link that was working on Facebook. Is it OK now?
Yup. Thanks!
A click to Google seeking more (got none!) info on ‘Stop Disney’ returned instead 7 or 8 PAGES of article links to petitions opposing Disney’s PAYING CRITICS to FAVOR THEIR flicks and/ or PAN COMPETITORS !! What process WON’T they attempt to subvert / corrupt ???
This is totally insane. The citizens of Anaheim need to get pringle and associates out of office.
Paul we are doing all we can to get them out in November, but they are grabbing for every nickel imaginable between now and then. If we don’t stop them July 12 there will be nothing left to govern. Seriously. Everyone assumes Anaheim has pots of money and can recover from something like this. But Anaheim’s General Fund is already so depleted by previous commitments of funding that we drop below the General Fund of SANTA FREAKING ANA with more permanent residents to provide services for, and a whole lot more visitors to cover expenses for.