Voters back Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait's majority for City Council despite Disney's best efforts to rig elections with overwhelming campaign money to elect its own cronies

Political lines in Anaheim elections are drawn along interests of those of the city and money from Disneyland
This is indeed the year of "draining the swamp" in government elections, even in Disneyland's hometown of Anaheim, California, where the House of Mouse has previously enjoyed a big home field advantage, in terms of campaign funding, in manipulating the local elections in favor of its own interests, electing a number of political cronies into office who are more than willing to pay back Disney in political and business favors when they get into office.

Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait (second from the left) now has a majority voting block
on the Anaheim City to oppose corporate giveaways of taxpayer dollars to
companies like Disney with council members Jose Moreno (left), Denise
Barnes (middle), and James Vanderbilt (right). Mark Lopez (fourth) didn't make it.
This is the kind of "fix" that presidential candidates, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, were talking about in politics that rigged or put the thumb down on the scales in elections in favor of Wall Street corporations and big business entities in their interests, through lopsided PAC campaign contributions in electing their favored political cronies into public governmental offices.

Disney has always had a dog in the local political races because, by maintaining a business-friendly majority on the city council, they could get a number of tax subsidies, infrastructural public-works projects, and corporate giveaways approved from the city worth hundreds of millions of dollars that directly benefit Disney at the expense of the city's tax payers.

This kind of political corruption in the political system is crony capitalism at its worst as corporations are not limited in how much cash they can contribute to political action committees (PACs) to directly influence and contaminate an election.


How cozy are Disneyland officials with certain Disney-backed members of the Anaheim Council?

Anaheim Councilwoman Kris Murray's European trip with Disneyland lobbyist
Carrie Nocella raised many eyebrows in Orange County in late 2014
In late 2014, Councilwoman Kris Murray took a celebratory vacation trip to Europe with Disneyland's chief lobbyist, Carrie Nocella, that had many in City Hall up in arms about conflicts of interest.

The pair had apparently taken the trip after Disney funneled thousands of dollars in PAC money to help re-elect Murray to City Hall in November of 2014.

"Very poor decision," said county campaign finance watchdog Shirley Grindle. "It looks like you're in bed with all that's going on between Anaheim and the Disney company."

This dubious incident, however, is just a drop in the bucket in the amount of political corruption that has continued to take place from Disneyland's manipulation of the local political landscape in the City of Anaheim.


This year alone, the Walt Disney Company shattered its own record in campaign spending set in 2014 with an obscene sum of money amounting to nearly $1 million to try to elect its own chosen political cronies, favorable to the business interests of the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, in four city council seats up for election this year, according to the Voice of OC.

Mayor Tom Tait has become a major foe to special interests inside Anaheim
politics because he vowed to end corporate tax subsidies on the back of the
city's taxpayers
The Walt Disney Company has funneled $904,000 in political action committee (PAC) money on 10 different groups—among the most prominent of which is Support Our Anaheim Resort Area (S.O.A.R.)—who in turn have directed over $1 million into supporting Disney-backed city candidates and opposing Mayor Tom Tait's backed candidates for city council in the City of Anaheim.

The Disney-funded political action committees (PACs) spent $865,000 on advertising to support Disney-backed candidates for Anaheim's City Council (i.e., Jordan Brandman, Lucille Kring, Steve Chavez Lodge, and Steve Faessel), while spending $203,000 opposing Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait's (Disney's main political foe) supported candidates for city hall (i.e., Jose Moreno, Denise Barnes, Mark Lopez, and Arturo Ferreras.)


Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait has become Disneyland's main political opponent in recent years because he opposes many of the tax subsidies and corporate giveaways to Disneyland and other Anaheim Resort District businesses because they are too much of a burden on city tax payers, who ultimately will flip the bill on those kinds of expensive political favors.


All that money Disney spent on trying to manipulate the Anaheim elections was all for not this year because Disney just lost majority control of the Anaheim City Council by losing two closely-contested seats at city hall to candidates backed by Mayor Tom Tait.

Since Disney has already committed to its resort's expansion with construction
of the new 'Star Wars' land and a new hotel, the City of Anaheim will likely
increase sales taxes and hotel room taxes on Disney's existing hotels and businesses
On election day, November 8th, the City of Anaheim held its first district-based elections as part of a settlement to a California Voting Rights Act lawsuit, Moreno v. City of Anaheim, brought against the City of Anaheim by the ACLU and a local Latino civil rights activist, Jose F. Moreno, who happened to also run in the elections and upset one of Disney's incumbent Anaheim city council cronies, Jordan Brandman, in one of the new district seats created on the new district-based city council.

Up until the historic November 8th elections, Anaheim remained the largest city in California to retain an at-large system of voting to elect local representatives on the city council. That means that Anaheim's five city council seats were elected based on the top vote-getters citywide rather than from voters in specific districts within the city.


The ACLU claimed in its Voter Rights Act lawsuit that Anaheim's at-large city council elections disenfranchised Latinos, who make up the majority, 53 percent, of Anaheim's residents.

The pivotal races that Disney lost were District 1: Denise Barnes over Steve Lodge
and District 3: Jose Moreno over Jordan Brandman
The current five-member city council is all-white, elected largely from predominantly-white residents of East Anaheim.

But that all changed in 2014 when the city settled the ACLU Voting Rights Act lawsuit, dividing up the city into six districts, of which each district will elect their own city council representative. The mayor, who remains elected at large by voters, represents the seventh seat on the newly expanded city council.

This year, four of those city council seats were up for election under the new district-based election system in the City of Anaheim, and Disney, who backed their own favored candidates in all four of those seats lost in two of those highly-contested elections, handing majority control of the Anaheim City Council to their main political rival, Mayor Tom Tait, who backed two of the winning candidates for city council, Jose Moreno and Denise Barnes.

The Anaheim City Council: a forum to go 'full retard' in public

The Tait-backed representatives now represent four of the seven seats on the City Council (i.e., Jose Moreno, Denise Barnes, James Vanderbilt, and the Mayor himself), while Disney-backed representatives on the city council (i.e., Kris Murray, Lucille Kring, and Steve Faessel) only represent a minority of three seats.

Also gone is Anaheim's all-white city council in a city comprising of a 53%
Latino majority
The ramifications to the tectonic shift in power in Anaheim's city hall is immense as the Tait-backed city council can now hold Anaheim Resort District businesses—especially Disney—more accountable for their share of the city's tax burden, while giving relief to local taxpayers who previously overpaid their share of taxes to Disney's great benefit.

"Who do we represent?" said Mayor Tait. "The people and not the special interests."

Tait's underfunded city council campaigns ran on "drain the swamp" message similar to that of Presidential candidates, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, in the national elections, opposing massive tax-payer subsidies granted to Disneyland and other resort district businesses and committing to end special interest politics and corruption inside city hall.


And the voters apparently listened and responded to that message, as they have become tired of paying for endless corporate giveaways.

Another nutjob goes 'full retard' at the Anaheim City Council

"Those kinds of deals shouldn't even be showing up on the agenda now," the Mayor went on to say, "because by definition it's taking the people's money and giving it to individual corporations."


Since Disneyland and all the other resort district developers are already committed to expanding and building new business interests inside Anaheim, it seems the city under its new city council will come into a windfall of new tax revenues as they are expected to implement higher taxes on businesses inside Anaheim, and that's got to worry Disney a great deal.


While previous municipal giveaways such as gate tax subsidies and new luxury hotel room tax rebates cannot be touched, City Hall can raise sales taxes inside the Resort District and hotel room taxes on existing hotels in the Resort District to make up the difference lost from prior bad deals. 


It looks like resort area businesses will have to pay their fair share of taxes like the rest of us have to. There will be no more special treatment or favoritism given to the rich on the backs of the little guy anymore.
  

 

Election Results:

Anaheim is now divided up into 6 districts
City of Anaheim, City Council Elections

                                            Vote Count   Percentage    Completed Precincts                                  
District 1:                                                                         30 of 30
Denise Barnes                     3,636             27.3%             Winner
Steven Lodge                      3,350             25.1%    

District 3:                                                                         20 of 20
Jose Moreno                       4,636             36.0%              Winner
Jordan Brandman               4,563             35.4%

District 4:                                                                         16 of 16
Lucille Kring                        4,921             42.3%              Winner
Arturo Ferreras                   3,462             29.7%

District 5:                                                                         23 of 23                           
Steven Faessel                   6,327             42.7%              Winner
Mark Lopez                         5,163             34.9%


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