The real reason why Disney is panicking over the L.A. Times news coverage over Mickey Mouse not paying his fair share in Anaheim

The blatant corruption and conflicts-of-interest inside Anaheim's city hall, over years of giving away billions of
dollars of taxpayer funds to the Walt Disney Company, have a lot of Anaheim residents and businesses up in arms
At the end of September, the Los Angeles Times published a scathing, in-depth, four-part investigative series on Disneyland's political lobbying efforts over the years inside the City of Anaheim entitled, Anaheim's Subsidy Kingdom.

Disney's latest and most controversial project includes an exclusive public pedestrian
bridge, to be built on public property, which will not give the public any access on
Harbor Blvd. to safely cross Harbor Blvd. to Disneyland's eastern main gate, will
create huge legal liabilities for the city and possibly Disney
The Times articles questioned the theme park giant's lopsided and often heavy-handed involvement in local politics, not only in influencing the outcome of the elections of Anaheim City Council with massive infusions of PAC money and campaign contributions, but also the Times showed how the powerful multinational media conglomerate financially benefited, election after the election, from numerous kickbacks, massive government subsidies, political favors and sweetheart deals from the city over the years.

The Times insinuated from their articles that these kinds of questionable, if not outright illegal, crony-capitalist kick-backs to Disney from its elected pro-Disney political puppets—who are often referred to as the "Disney Tali-heim" by their political foes inside Anaheim city hall and whose remaining members on the current City Council are Kris Murray, Lucille Kring and Steve Faessel—may be a thing of the past with the recent changes in city council elections from all being citywide elections to now becoming six discrete elections by city districts.


While none of these corrupt quid pro quo political practices inside Anaheim's city hall that were reexamined by the Times are really new—they are really rehashed, old stories previously covered by OC Weekly, Voice of OC, Disneyleaks, the Times itself and even the pro-Disney paper the OC Register that had previously been published and largely had gone under the radar of mainstream media without anyone really questioning their legality—Disney is still acting like the revelation of these scandals is somehow going to badly damage its business reputation to the point that it will affect its bottom line.

Construction plans for the proposed 7-story Pumba parking structure on Disneyland
Way in the Eastern Gateway expansion project may have stalled due to local
businesses' resistance to Disneyland's current plans to build a pedestrian bridge
over Harbor Blvd.which excludes any access to foot traffic from Harbor Blvd
For some reason, Disney became very alarmed about what the Times wrote in its latest investigative series, and they panicked to the point they got several of their pro-Disney media surrogates to sharply rebuke the Times last week, on behalf of the Disneyland Resort, on what they called the "unfair" accusations and allegations against the House of Mouse.

It seems Disney was going way out of its way to shoot the messenger in a lot of old, rehashed but highly truthful stories about Disneyland's seedy involvement and under-the-table dealings with Anaheim's city government when they have much bigger things to worry about these days (e.g., declining corporate revenues, a drop in their stock prices, subscriber loses in its cable businesses, falling ratings in all its network and cable channels, decreased attendance in all their theme parks around the world, a sharp drop in box office revenues for its studio entertainment, trying to implement its expansion plans for the resort, etc.)


So why is Disney going bat-sh*t crazy over summaries of some old news stories of political quid pro quo cronyism that they had been playing out over decades with Disney's hand-chosen political cronies inside Anaheim's city hall?


While the Times' investigative series is not alleging anything new, we do see the series for what it is trying to do, which is to establish a foundation and exposition for the real news-breaking stories that have yet to be published and are, most assuredly, coming very soon from the Times. It's really just the calm before the real storm that is brewing on the horizon.

Success of Disneyland's ambitious expansion plans will greatly rely on
expanding parking spaces and managing traffic gridlock around the resort
It's obvious to us, if not everyone else, that the Times got an inside tip from city officials, with knowledge of the situation inside Anaheim's city hall, that they plan to take major steps to push back against Disneyland in the coming months, if not years, so the Times is beginning the build-up to the real series of investigative stories they plan on breaking on the Disneyland Resort in the news.

That is what has Disney executives very worried.

Those municipal initiatives most assuredly include increases in existing and new taxes on Disneyland to try to help recover billions of dollars of public city funds that were long given away to Disney for various public works projects and subsidies that tax payers paid for, in which Disneyland but not the public primarily benefited from (e.g., Mickey & Friends parking structure, the overpasses from the I-5 into the parking structure on North Disneyland Drive, the Downtown Disney pedestrian bridge and underpass on Disneyland Drive, the numerous renovations of Harbor Boulevard and Katella Avenue along the Anaheim Resort District, and the list goes on and on.)


We've already seen the beginnings of the city council's rollbacks last December when Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait's majority coalition on the city council swiftly terminated two existing Disney pet-projects sponsored by the previous Disney-majority led city councils: 1. a controversial tax subsidy program for luxury hotel developers, and 2. the Anaheim Streetcar project transporting visitors and employees to and from the ARTIC transportation hub, right by Angel Stadium in Anaheim's Platinum Triangle.

Despite Disney's lopsided PAC contributions to try to get their political cronies
elected into Anaheim's City Council again, the voters instead voted in 2016 to 'drain 
the swamp' and gave Mayor Tom Tait a majority of like-minded elected city officials 
who represented the people's interests over that of Mickey Mouse
All we know so far, however, is that all this political intrigue is happening now because of the stunning, upset defeat in the historic Anaheim City Council elections last November, which shifted the majority control of the City Council from the pro-Disney Tali-heim to a more moderate, Disney-skeptical, pro-Anaheim residents' coalition led by Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait.

And now, like many of Disney's other previously acquiescent business partners who over the years had gotten the short end of the stick in dealing with the Walt Disney Company, it looks like the Tait-led coalition is ready to hit back to take back control of the City of Anaheim from the Walt Disney Corporation.


And that has Disney very worried since they have already committed to a major multi-billion dollar expansion plan of their existing theme parks in Anaheim.

Is it legal, and can the public sue? Disneyland's proposed 'Eastern Gateway Project' will try to bypass businesses 
on Harbor Blvd. with a pedestrian bridge over a public street without any public access to/from Harbor Blvd.

Battleground Harbor Blvd.: A bridge too far

Disney's proposed Eastern Gateway Project will reroute anyone wanting to go 
to and from Disneyland on Harbor Blvd., to go completely around the block, 
adding almost a quarter to one-half mile walk for pedestrians on foot, 
when they currently only have to cross a 150-foot span of Harbor Blvd.
Unfortunately for Disney, the Tait-led coalition, which is the main opposing force to resist the complete takeover of the city by Disney, seems to be gathering more strength and momentum from residents within the community in their common quest to wrestle control of the city's purse strings away from the Walt Disney Company.

That support is coming not only from many long-suffering local residents, tired of supporting the Disneyland Resort with billions of dollars in taxpayer funds from city coffers for a bottomless pit of corporate welfare initiatives at the expense of badly needed repairs to roads, funding of essential city services, and supporting local schools and community improvement projects, but it seems that many local businesses are now also fed up with always getting the short end of the stick when the city gives unfair, preferential treatment to Disneyland at the expense of other local businesses' interests.


The proposed pedestrian bridge over Harbor Boulevard in Disney's ambitious Eastern Gateway Project is a great example of how many local business feel that Disney has become too greedy and have just gone too far in lobbying the city for public works projects that exclusively benefit the Walt Disney Company at the expense and detriment of other local businesses in the Resort District.

Robert 'Red' Harbin, executive director of the Harbor Blvd. Merchants Coalition
is leading the insurgency against Disney's proposal to not allow any access to the
public pedestrian bridge from Harbor Blvd. which ironically was always designed
to have pedestrian safety in mind when Disneyland visitors cross Harbor Blvd.
In 2015, Disney made an unusual move to purchase the Carousel Inn across the street from Disneyland's Harbor Gate on Harbor Boulevard for $32 million.

No one knew at the time what Disney was going to do with a dinky hotel on a long, narrow strip of land, but soon enough, it became very apparent what Disney's intentions were.

Disney purchased the hotel in order to demolish it, so that they could then convert the land that the hotel sits on into a connecting pedestrian walkway from large plots of land they owned behind the hotel on Manchester Avenue to Harbor Blvd.

The plan by Disney, which is now known as the massive Eastern Gateway Project, proposed that a badly-needed seven-story parking structure be built on the current Pumba parking lot, which will allow guests to park close to the east main gate entrance and walk over to Disneyland via the walkway that was to be built on the existing Carousel Inn.


In addition, the East Shuttle Area, currently sitting on the east side of the Disneyland Resort on Harbor Blvd., would then be relocated to the Eastern Gateway Project off of Manchester Ave., so that the land on the current East Shuttle Area could then be freed up for future, yet to be revealed expansion projects for the Disney California Adventure theme park and presumably for an extension of the Downtown Disney shopping district, designated as Downtown Disney East.

What the Carousel Inn would become as a connecting walkway from
the Eastern Gateway plaza to the pedestrian bridge over Harbor Blvd.
A large pedestrian bridge would also have to be built by the city connecting the Disneyland Resort to the Eastern Gateway plaza, which consists of the parking structure and the massive transportation hub (i.e., a taxi area, bus lanes, and a drop-off area for automobiles not planning on parking in the structure) to replace the current hub on Harbor Blvd.

The public pedestrian bridge would then allow all guests entering the Disneyland Resort on the east side to walk across into the Disneyland Resort, unimpeded by oncoming traffic on Harbor Blvd.

Disneyland needs to build this new transportation hub in order to guarantee the success of its ambitious and very expensive future expansion plans for the resort, which includes the new Star Wars Land project currently under construction, the construction of a new luxury hotel which is currently in the planning stages, and several other future expansion projects for the theme parks and shopping district, which have yet to be finalized or announced to the public.


Large, anticipated traffic jams in the current main entrance gateways will impact the long-term success of Disneyland's multi-faceted future expansion projects as the persistent inconvenience from massive traffic congestion on Harbor Boulevard and Disneyland Drive may discourage guests from coming to the theme parks in the numbers that Disney would like to see for any of Disneyland's new offerings when they are completed and begin to open up, starting in 2019.

Schematic of Disneyland's various and very ambitious future expansion plans
These nagging infrastructural problems, if not addressed, may also potentially impact and delay the opening dates of Disneyland's various theme park expansion construction projects, especially the new Star Wars Land Galaxy's Edge set to open in 2019.

The proposed Eastern Gateway expansion project is one solution to the problem of the anticipated massive traffic gridlock around the Disneyland Resort.

There is, however, one little twist to this plan to build the Eastern Gateway Project that Disney did not want the public to figure out.

Disneyland wants to put its east side security checkpoint to inspect all guests somewhere in the Eastern Gateway plaza, before guests even enter the Carousel walkway, so that would exclude the possibility of having any public access ways onto the pedestrian bridge to and from Harbor Blvd.


This specific clause in the fine print of denying any public access onto the proposed pedestrian bridge from Harbor Blvd. has all the other businesses on Harbor Blvd., across from the Disneyland Resort, up in arms and crying foul against Disney. And frankly, they rightfully should be very angry at both Disney and the previous pro-Disney Anaheim City Council for trying to pull the wool over everyone's eyes.

The Harbor Blvd. strip across the Disneyland Resort sees a great deal of
business from tourist foot traffic coming from the Disneyland Resort
By excluding any public access ways to the pedestrian bridge to and from Harbor Blvd., foot traffic from Disneyland visitors onto the Harbor Blvd strip would largely evaporate, leaving many of the businesses on Harbor Blvd. stuck between a rock and a hard place to stay afloat.

The way that Disney has it planned out now, anyone walking from the hotels on Harbor Blvd. would have to walk in a circuitous path around the entire block to get into the Eastern Gateway plaza to cross Harbor Blvd., using only the pedestrian bridge to get into the Disneyland Resort.

As part of the master plan, Disneyland will, most assuredly, close off the East Shuttle Area gates to all foot traffic and any other public access into the resort from anywhere on Harbor Blvd, except through the proposed pedestrian bridge. (See Disney's Eastern Gateway flythrough to the security gateway on YouTube above.)


This is all done intentionally by Disney to drive all the businesses to go out of business on Harbor Blvd., so that they could eventually pressure them all to sell Disney the land that these businesses sit on for future theme parks and resort expansion plans when these Harbor Blvd. merchants eventually fail from a sharp drop in business from the resort that they were previously accustom to seeing.


The lack of any convenient public access ways onto the proposed Harbor Blvd. bridge from Harbor Blvd. was something that Disney hoped the Harbor Blvd. businesses would simply overlook, but Disney officials vastly underestimated the collective intelligence of those business owners, who instantly took notice of Disney's ulterior motives, and they staunchly objected to the plan, threatening to sue both Disney and the city in the process.

The Eastern Gateway Project also proposes to move the entire East
Shuttle Area transportation hub to the Eastern Gateway Project site
The Harbor Blvd. businesses quickly banned together to fight the current proposed and exclusive pedestrian bridge to be used by Disney, which, as is, would be without any public assess ways, by forming a coalition against the current plans for the Harbor Blvd. bridge, known as the Harbor Blvd. Merchants Coalition (HBMC).

It should be noted that the Harbor merchants did not necessarily oppose the idea of building a public pedestrian bridge over Harbor Blvd., per se.

In fact, many of the HBMC welcomed the construction of a publicly accessible pedestrian bridge because that would make it easier for and encourage many Disneyland guests to cross over Harbor Blvd. to patronize their restaurants, stores and hotels. They only opposed not having any public access to the bridge from Harbor Blvd.

But Disney clearly does not want that particular scenario to happen, in worst way possible, because they will risk losing a significant amount of business to the businesses on Harbor Blvd. who could better compete with Disney's high prices for products, services and rent for retail space from the Disneyland Theme Parks & Resort.


In fact, we would be inclined to believe that Disney would rather scrap the entire Eastern Gateway Project altogether before ever letting that particular scenario of a fully accessible public pedestrian bridge be built over Harbor Blvd., which is why a number of previous proposals for constructing a pedestrian bridge over Harbor Blvd. have all failed to be approved and why the current Eastern Gateway Project has recently stalled.

Disney's $32 million purchase of the Carousel Inn in 2015 may the biggest
waste of money for Disney if they can't realize their plans to build their Eastern
Gateway Project on schedule before the opening of Star Wars Land in 2019
Thus, the Harbor merchants reasonably demanded that the public have full access to the proposed public bridge from Harbor Blvd, which will be built on public property (i.e., the supporting columns would be sunken into Harbor Boulevard which is owned by the city) and, therefore, the bridge (which is over public property of Harbor Blvd.) would, in and of itself, be considered public domain, regardless of who built the bridge or paid for its construction.

The current Disney-led plans to exclude access from Harbor Blvd. also goes against the very purpose and public mission of building the pedestrian bridge, which is to give the public safe passage across Harbor Blvd. against the inherent safety hazards posed by oncoming traffic from having to cross Harbor Blvd. on foot.


Should any pedestrian crossing Harbor Blvd., between Disneyland Way and Manchester Ave., be injured or killed because of a foreseeable traffic incident, they or their surviving heirs could conceivably sue both the City of Anaheim and Disney for gross negligence in failing to provide convenient public access to the bridge for its very intended purpose, which is to safeguard pedestrians from oncoming traffic while crossing Harbor Blvd.

So far, the Eastern Gateway Project has stalled because neither side
wants to give an inch in compromising to the other side's demands
Therefore, Disney and the City of Anaheim would be forced, one way or another, to create public access ways to the bridge from Harbor Blvd. because of the immense legal liabilities they would assume if they deliberately didn't allow any reasonable public access for pedestrians to safely cross on Harbor Blvd.

The HBMC also listed several other laws, municipal codes and preexisting legal binding agreements on their website, which makes the blocking of public access of a public pedestrian bridge on Harbor Blvd., actionable in a court of law.

What has become very clear is that there is also absolutely no reason that Disney needs to put its security screening checkpoint arbitrarily onto the Eastern Gateway plaza before its guests cross the bridge, except to use that as a convenient excuse to block any public access to and from Harbor Blvd.

Disney could just as easily put the east side security checkpoint anywhere immediately after crossing the bridge, but they don't want to do that for "some reason," and one of those reasons is that they don't want the Harbor Blvd. businesses to benefit in any way from the establishment of a public bridge into and out of their resort.


This is also why we believe Disneyland would have also expanded the Downtown Disney shopping district, east of the entrance plaza and on the existing East Shuttle Area, to further attempt to drive the Harbor Blvd. merchants out of business with intense competition from their own chosen operating partners, which Disney would have placed as close to the Harbor Blvd. businesses as they possibly could.

Currently, crowds walking into the Disneyland east main gate must all use
 Harbor Blvd. and enter into Disneyland's East Shuttle Area transportation hub
Disney's big mistake, and ultimately its downfall in its far-overreaching Eastern Gateway Project, however, was that it simply got too greedy and wanted to get too much out of the Harbor Blvd. bridge deal.

Despite what some Disney fanboys have been posting on YouTube to try to convince the HBMC to simply give into all of Disney's demands on the Eastern Gateway Project, these delusional pro-Disney podcasters really have no say or vote on local municipal business matters involving the Anaheim Resort District, but the current Tait-led majority on the City Council does have the final say, and it appears they are very sympathetic to the HBMC's concerns.

Unfortunately for Disney and their fan base, these local businesses have just as much say, if not more in the current political climate inside city hall, in how the Harbor Blvd. bridge will be built since it has to be built, owned and operated by the city for public use for everyone to enjoy.


It is completely ignorant, arrogant and presumptuous to believe any of the business owners on Harbor Blvd., in their right minds and against their own interests, will abdicate all their responsibilities and relinquish the millions of dollars they invested in their own livelihoods just to further Disney's selfish motives to drive them out of business, using their own taxpayer dollars they pay into as ammunition to build a multi-million dollar public pedestrian bridge for exclusive private use by a cartoon mouse. It's a ridiculous argument that's never going to fly with anyone from city hall to the courts.

Paying toll on an existing public bridge to the Disney trolls

Is it legal for Disney to charge rent from vendors on a public pedestrian bridge
that sits on top of a city street, such as the Downtown Disney bridge that sits on
top of Disneyland Drive?
In addition, the law simply does not grant exclusive property rights and privileges of private use to private entities or businesses for structures built on public property, which must be considered public domain, especially if they are built on or over public property intended exclusively for public use, such as city streets.

It can be clearly seen in the architectural drawings of the Harbor Blvd. bridge that the support columns for the bridge are firmly embedded into Harbor Blvd which is public property solely intended for the public's use.

Clearly, this would even pose a significant legal problem and a huge liability for Disneyland's existing pedestrian bridge in Downtown Disney that spans over the city-owned underpass of Disneyland Drive on the west side of the resort.


Disneyland recently closed off all the pedestrian access ways to the public to get onto the publicly-owned pedestrian bridge from Disneyland Drive—most notably along the span of road between Magic Way on the north and the intersection for the Disneyland hotels' driveways on the south—because they expanded the resort's security corridor zone to include the entire Downtown Disney shopping district, which is where the previously publicly accessible pedestrian bridge sits in the middle of, for the exclusive private use by their guests and operating partners.

Like the proposed Harbor Blvd. bridge, the existing Downtown Disney bridge
over the city-owned Disneyland Drive underpass is clearly public domain
because it sits on a public city street that is considered public property, so
Disney and the city may be legally liable for removing public access ways
to the bridge on Disneyland Drive
Clearly, if anyone were injured or killed on Disneyland Drive by oncoming traffic while trying to cross that span of road between the intersections of Magic Way and the Disneyland hotels' driveways, both the city and Disney would, again, be legally liable for personal injuries incurred in the same manner pointed out previously for not providing public access to the proposed public bridge on Harbor Blvd.

Thus, removing all the public access ways to the bridge from Disneyland Drive (e.g., blocking the walkway north of Gate 4 and the pathway between the AMC Theatre and Legoland to get into Downtown Disney) has created a lot of potential legal liabilities for both the city and Disneyland.

We would like to more closely examine the fine print of the legal agreement between Disney and the city on what exclusive rights Disney has on the public domain of the pedestrian bridge that also happens to sit on a city street, because there may be a very real possibility that Disney is also illegally squatting on public property by placing retail kiosks on the bridge and charging operating partners rent to run those retail kiosks with the clear intent to conduct private commerce on public property.


Private entities simply cannot charge rent on property they do not own or which is considered public domain. That's considered to be fraud.

Since the city took out public bus benches on Harbor Blvd. to discourage the
homeless from sleeping on them, the public benches along either side of the
pedestrian bridge are now fair game to sleep on
Private entities are also not entitled to any property rights or other exclusionary privileges on any property that is permanently affixed to public property that is solely intended for the public's use, such as city streets or public bridges sitting on public streets.

So Disneyland may not be able to kick out anybody, such as panhandlers who might choose to sleep on the concrete benches on the sides of the bridge, from the Downtown Disney bridge since it is public property and considered public domain.

Thus, these endeavors of "building bridges" with the city—both literally and figuratively—may be a bigger headache for Disney than anyone could have ever imagined.


There is no doubt Disney has been under great pressure of late to offset long-term declines in most of its business divisions (e.g., media networks, studio entertainment, digital interactive, etc.), that are vulnerable to ongoing digital disruption from streaming video services and video piracy on the internet, with some positive results from its only remaining viable division left that has any potential for growth—in other words, its theme parks and resorts division.

Disneyland may have already thrown in the towel on their Eastern Gateway
Project as they have unexpectedly announced an alternative, half-baked plan to 
drastically expand their Toy Story parking lot after plans to start construction on 
the Eastern Gateway Project began to see delays
Therefore, Disney's only plan to grow its theme parks businesses is through aggressive expansion plans of its existing theme parks and resorts, which in the case of Disneyland requires the acquisition of more land adjacent to its theme parks.

Thus, Disney executives have adopted a very inconspicuous predatory business scheme in Disneyland's hometown of Anaheim, California, whereby they will do whatever they can to drive out other local mom and pop businesses on Harbor Blvd. to eventually force all of them to sell off their lands to the Walt Disney Corporation.

Unfortunately for Disney, the Tait-led majority on the Anaheim City Council and the HBMC, led by their capable executive director Robert "Red" Harbin, are just too smart for the House of Mouse and have figured out Disney's schemes before they could be implemented without anyone noticing.


Therefore, because of all these immense legal hurdles and resistance from a Tait-led majority in city hall and local businesses, the Eastern Gateway Project may already be considered DOA, and Disney may finally be on the hook to also pay its fair share of taxes, like everyone else has to, because what other choice do they have at this point? They can't simply pick up the entire Disneyland theme parks and resort and move it somewhere else. They're stuck.


They are already committed to some of their resort expansion plans, and they simply no longer have the kind of leverage and power they previously enjoyed to get the kind of sweetheart deals they are used to getting from their hand-picked operatives inside Anaheim's city hall.


Of course, this will all be reported in the L.A. Times, and by what we have seen thus far, we already know Disney will not like what the Times will report.


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