You are currently browsing the monthly archive for February 2013.
Here’s the text of Mayor Tom Tait’s 2013 State of the City speech, courtesy of the city website:
Welcome to Anaheim. What a City!
INTRODUCTIONS
–Family, Tait & Associates
I would also like to thank my colleagues on the Anaheim City Council for joining us here today: Mayor Pro Tem Gail Eastman and Council Members Kris Murray, Jordan Brandman and Lucille Kring. I’d also like to acknowledge Lorri Galloway and Harry Sidhu, two councilmembers who left the city council in December after eight years of public service on behalf of the people of Anaheim.
All of these councilmembers put in a tremendous amount of time doing their job. And it is not an easy one. Please, one more time, let’s all thank them again.
I would be remiss if I didn’t thank and acknowledge the hard work and tremendous talent of our city staff, starting with City Manager, Bob Wingenroth. Bob officially became the city manager this year and I know that the entire council joins me in saying that we couldn’t have hired a better person for the job.
I would also like to acknowledge the talented Cristina Talley, who provided the city with top-notch legal guidance for more than for 17 years. Cristina was a model public servant who took pride in working on behalf of all Anaheim residents. Thank you, Cristina, for your years of service.
I went to the Anaheim State of the City event today, and it was much like the past few. I sat next to a very nice young guy named Zachary King, who is partners in the video and film company that produced the films that bracketed Mayor Tom Tait’s speech. The quality and production of the videos were top-notch.
Here’s a brief recap (I’ll post the full text of Mayor Tait’s address when it is made available):
Anaheim Chamber of Commerce President Jeff Farano gave a 5-6 minute speech reviewing the year’s accomplishments and looking ahead to continued success, as well as working with City Hall for a safe and prosperous Anaheim.
Cristina Talley
At the November 13, 2012 Anaheim City Council meeting, the council wanted to form an ad hoc committee to oversee the city’s negotiations with the Angels regarding an extension on their lease. The council majority planned to name Councilmember Gail Eastman and Councilmember Kris Murray to the ad hoc committee as Mayor Tom Tait had previously claimed a potential conflict of interest because he owned property across from Angels Stadium and his engineering business operated out of a neighboring building.
This is where it gets interesting. In response to an inquiry about the Mayor’s conflict, the Anaheim City Council minutes report what happened next:
“At the request of the Mayor, the City Attorney reported that Mayor Tait had previously secured an advice letter from the Fair Political Practices Commission indicating … he would not have a conflict of interest under the Political Reform Act.”
It has been a couple of months since the city attorney made this interpretation of the FPPC conflict letter. The letter was never made available.
On Friday, the Voice of OC published an article about an e-mail the reporter had not even seen, breathlessly describing it as “politically explosive.”
Last night the Voice published a follow-up story — this time after actually reading the e-mail (or as it turns out, e-mails) in question and being educated on the actual context and meaning. The description of the e-mail was downgraded to merely “questionable.” Sort of like the U.S. Weather Service downgrading a meteorological event from “hurricane” to “gusty winds.”
Personally, I think the “questionable” appellation is an overstatement. OCTA CEO-designate Darrell Johnson provided very reasonable explanations in the Voice article, and they come down to semantics and jargon and the occasional in-exactitude that is an inevitable aspect of human endeavors. Furthermore, no one has been able to point to any evidence of any wrong-doing or unethical conduct (the wishful thinking of ankle-biters does not count as proof).
For me and many others, the most shocking thing about this episode has been the heedlessness and haste with which this story has been reported and allegations carelessly tossed about, needlessly and recklessly damaging the reputations of two individuals of integrity. Isn’t investigative reporting supposed to be about nailing down facts, and crossing Ts and dotting Is?
Cristina Talley
Vern Nelson posted this 90-proof left-wing exhortation regarding the termination of Anaheim City Attorney Cristina Talley over at the perfervid Orange Juice Blog. [Anaheim Blog is not fearful of linking to blogs with diverging opinions, unlike Vern and some of his cohorts like Ricardo Toro, who refuse to link to this blog. very confident in their arguments, they must be!]
Reading Vern’s screed is a vivid illustration of how ardently the left views the world through a racial lens. Race and ethnicity are everything (at least, most of the time).
Ever since her firing a few days ago, left-wing agitators have suddenly made an issue of Talley’s ethnicity. Suddenly, media outlets are prominently mentioning that Talley is a Latina — although what correlation that has to her lawyerly abilities is never stated. The local Left plays the race card in order to shut down, rather than enhance, discussion and debate.
Obviously, the council is split on the question of Talley’s competence. I don’t have a strong opinion on the degree of Talley’s legal acumen as a city attorney, but am certain it stems her mind, talent, education, character and experience — and not from her ethnicity or the color of her skin. It is reprehensible that so many of those who are exploiting this incident for their own purposes are trying to make it about race.
The voluble Vern Nelson declares that she is an outstanding city attorney, stating flatly that she “has been doing stellar legal work for the city since 1996.” Vern doesn’t explain the basis of that claim; perhaps his frequent interactions with the justice system endow him with a unique perspective unavailable to most of us. I suspect Vern says it because it serves his political purposes.
The outrage over her exit is interesting in that it comes from the same pressure groups who have been tirelessly flogging how the noticing of the GardenWalk agreement last year was a Brown Act Violation — and as the Voice of OC points out, “The city attorney, however, is ultimately responsible for assuring that council votes don’t violate the Brown Act.” The three council members who voted “yes” are vilified — wrongly — for violating the Brown Act, while the person ultimately responsible for that violation is lionized? That makes a lot of sense (and let me note, I don’t agree with the court decision in this matter).
As Talley’s opinion that the city is in violation of the California Voting Rights Act: from what I have read and according to the experts I have heard at the Anaheim Citizens Advisory Committee meetings, that judgment can’t be made until there is an in-depth statistical analysis to determine whether or not there is polarized voting occurring in Anaheim’s council elections – and to my knowledge, that hasn’t been done. Given the absence of that data, I am unclear on how Talley arrived at her conclusion.
But back my main point: Talley’s ethnicity is of no relevance to the issue of her being shown the door, and it is shameful the way it is being waved around like a bloody shirt.
TheLiberalOC.com reports that Al Jabbar has been appointed to the Anaheim Union High School District Board of Trustees, filling a vacancy created by the election of Jordan Brandman to the Anaheim City Council. Jabbar works for the county Health Care Agency.
In November of last year, Jabbar ran for a seat on the Anaheim City School District Board of Trustees, an effort in which he was support by the teachers unions (the single most destructive force in the decline of public education).
Jabbar, a Democrat, finished fourth out of a field of five candidates:
Here are some of his key endorsements from last year:
- Anaheim Elementary Educators Association
- Anaheim Secondary Educators Association
- California School Employees Association
- Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez
- State Senator Lou Correa
- Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens
- Anaheim City School District board member Dr. Jose Moreno
Elementary or high school district, he’s managed to get on some kind of school board.
Item 13 on the Anaheim City Council agenda for this Tuesday, February 5 is a recommendation for the Council to vote to set aside the GardenWalk project agreement that was approved in January 2012 – the recommendation being made per the court decision late last year voiding the agreement.
No other GardenWalk-related business is on the agenda, meaning the earliest it will come before the council is February 19.
$900,000? Sure it’s a lot of money, but there’s more where that came from.
The year-end Form 460s — those are campaign finance disclosure forms — were due yesterday, but a number of them were filed over the course of January.
I opened up the Form 460 for the OCEA-sponsored “Committee to Support John Leos for Anaheim City Council 2012,” and did a double take when I saw the final total spending on behalf of Leos:
$531,055.17
One would have to do the research, but I’d wager that is an Anaheim record for IE spending on a single candidate by a single entity (with a sub-category of spending it and losing).
$365,622.65 of that was spent in the final 17 days of the campaign, with a large chunks uncorked in the last days to fund phone banks and paid walkers.
Ouch.
$390,000 of that $531,055 came from the pockets of OCEA members, the rest from other labor unions (some of which also receive campaign fund transfers from OCEA, so the latter’s total may be higher).
Now, if you had this to the $200,000 spent by OCEA in its unsuccessful attempt to elect Leos to council in 2010, and the estimated$100,000 it spent in 2011 on a series of city-wide mailers promoting Leos and his “transparency ordinance,” then OCEA has spent $700,000 over the course less than three years to put John Leos on the Anaheim City Council.
Now, add the $32,360.79 spent by the OCEA Independent Expenditure Committee to fund attacks on Jordan Brandman.
Let’s further broaden the scope to include the $64,000 that OCEA put into signature gathering for the anti-GardenWalk Take Back Anaheim initiative, which failed to qualify for the ballot. And then add in the money OCEA spent on mailers hitting Councilmembers Harry Sidhu, Kris Murray and Gail Eastman over the GardenWalk vote — which was likely another $100,000 (and I’m estimating conservatively).
We’re talking at least $900,000 the OCEA has spent on Anaheim politics in less that three years. That’s almost a million dollars, and with very little to show for it: two Leos losses, a failed initiative campaign, and an alienated new councilmember.
City Attorney Cristina Talley
The Voice of OC reported last night on rumors that a majority of the city council has asked Talley to quit:
Rumors have been swirling since Tuesday night’s City Council meeting that the council majority has asked Talley to resign by 5 p.m. Thursday.
After the council held a closed-door meeting and returned to open session Tuesday night, Talley had left and wasn’t present to give her usual closed session report.
Instead, City Manager Bob Wingenroth said there was nothing to report from the closed session.
Council members did not return phone calls or declined comment.
Talley reportedly delivered a letter to City Hall late Thursday afternoon.
Talley has been Anaheim City Attorney since April of 2009.
The VOC cited failure to properly notice — in the eyes of the court, that is — the GardenWalk agreement agenda in January of 2012 as a possible reason:
Wingenroth had said at a cancelled council meeting turned town hall last year that he wrote the agenda item for the subsidy. The city attorney, however, is ultimately responsible for assuring that meeting agendas don’t violate the Brown Act.
VOC also pointedf to Talley’s opinion that the city’s current at-large council system is in violation of the California Voting Rights Act, as another possible reason — although I don’t quite understand how Talley could make that finding absent the statistical analysis necessary to determine if there has been “polarized voting.”
The comments have quickly piled up on the VOC post. Here’s Cynthia Ward, true to form:
I won’t even pretend I know what happened in that room Tuesday night. All I can say is Christina Talley is an honest public servant, who calls it like she sees it even when it is not what Council wants to hear. I see Anaheim’s leadership majority just riding roughshod over anyone who gets in their way, or even gives the appearance of standing up to them. The sad thing is they will get rid of her, and bring in a “yes man” like Jack White, who will get us sued even more when they let those people have their beloved status quo.
I hope Christina Talley has kept every email, every meeting note, every record of the profanity laced rants on the 7th floor, and I never thought I would say this about my beloved home town, but I hope she sues the socks off of the City of Anaheim. I hate to say that, but it is the only way the arrogant behavior is going to be exposed.
If it turns out that Council is firing the only Latina executive at City Hall because she stood up to the majority in pointing out that the current system they defend might be disenfranchising Latinos, methinks there is a campaign mailer in there somewhere. What a bunch of tools.
Ah, the essence of clarity and rational thinking, as ever. And playing the race card to boot!
Another commented pointed out the obvious to her:
Cynthia, first you admit you have no idea what happened here regarding Talley, and then you go off on a rant, lobbing accusations against the council majority you revile so, and then urge Talley to file lawsuit over a termination that is unconfirmed, and about which you admit knowing nothing!
As of 7:20 a.m. this morning, the prolific Beelzebub – amazingly — still had not weighed in.
Stay tuned. We’ll doubtless know the disposition of Ms. Talley soon enough.
Anaheim Blog 
Recent Comments