A tentative Superior Court ruling handed down today means the controversial TOT-split agreement with the GardenWalk project is going to be coming back to the Anaheim City Council for what is essentially a re-vote.
Orange County Communities Organized for Responsible Development (OCCORD) had been suing the project in court on various grounds, and it’s my understanding the court had been ruling against OCCORD…until now.
Scroll down to the bottom of this page on OCCourts.org:
Pet., OCCO, Petition for Writ of Mandate — Granted; The notice given of the Development contract fails to substantially comply with the Brown Act by only stating that the Counsel would discuss and consider the existing economic assistance contract and failing to state that it would authorize execution of the agreement. As such the Board’s action is void.
The Writ is to issue.
The ruling is essentially a technical and procedural one, rather than a judicial decision on the GardenWalk agreement itself.
The upshot: the agreement will have to be brought back before the Anaheim City Council, and the matter voted on all over again. At least this way, the anti-GardenWalk crowd won’t be able to complain they didn’t know a vote was going to take place. And they’ll have another chance to reiterate the phony claim it is a “$158 million giveaway” — which is quite a feat given that the project, and the revenues it would generate, doesn’t happen without the TOT split. Perhaps the Take Back Anaheim crowd will, at the same time, explain how to transform lead into gold — something equally impossible as the :”giveaway” claim.
It’s difficult to imagine a different outcome from the vote taken in early 2012. Two of the three pro-GardenWalk agreement votes are still on the council — Gail Eastman and Kris Murray — and they have been joined by another pro-GardenWalk vote, Jordan Brandman. Given that Brandman was on the receiving end of several hit pieces attacking him for that support and still emerged as the top-vote getter, there is every reason to believe he will continue to be a strong supporter.
Mayor Tom Tait will presumably remain in opposition. I don’t recall where Lucille Kring was at the time. Kring had opposed the subsequent “Take Back Anaheim” ballot-box budgeting initiative before she changed her position to support it, so it’s plausible to speculate she will oppose the TOT-split.
In 2010, Lucille Kring owned a wine bar in Garden Walk. Presuming she still does, she’d surely have to abstain from any vote on this issue.
The court ruled that the city attorney did not advise the council properly on this action – perhaps they should look at that contract as well! The city has to go through this media storm all over again because of unprofessional and incompetent staff work!
Also, Kring no longer owns the wine bar so she has no conflict. She has also been a long time supporter of this type of aggreement so perhaps she will be consistent and support this time as well…
So a local businessman/ developer got screwed by incompetence of city staff. And the city attorney did not do the simple job of writing an agenda that complied with the Brown Act. So what is the City Attorney’s job- and why cant you do your job? Com’on simple stuff and you personally put the city through another nasty hearing. But we all see through this. The Attorney has been sucking up to the Mayor and his positions to the detriment of the city in general and the council majority. This should be the last straw. Move on Christina. I am sure some liberal Governor will appoint you to something.
That local businessman should put up his own money to build those hotels instead of stealing from taxpayers.
It’s obvious that “Anahemman84” is Jason Young.
Jason Young has a criminal record for burglary, credit card fraud and identity theft. Read it here:
http://anaheimblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/jason-garner-young-case-summary-redacted.pdf
Stealing from taxpayers – so reducing someone’s tax burden is all about stealing from taxpayers? Why does anyone think that future taxdollars somehow are the absolute right of government and reducing them for any period of time amounts to stealing? That argument would only be made in CA!
[Comment deleted due to being a mendacious, malicious personal attack.]
So Matt, you delete my comment which is entirely accurate but leave up your attack on me which is not based in reality.
Jason: it was not accurate. It was a deliberate misrepresentation. I have explained, ad nauseum, why that is so.
Jason, In the years I have been blogging – and I’ve been at it longer than most — I don’t think I have encountered a more vicious, hypocritical, bizarre blogger than you, with the exception of Art Pedroza.
Jason Young is a convicted criminal – He has zero credibility on this or any other issue. Just when did his probation end – I think it was about the same time he started attacking community leaders in Anaheim. Anaheimman84 is Jason Young and his rants are uneducated and baseless.
AnaheimFirst- keep spreading those lies