Anaheim Insider here.

Mayor Tait thinks the Convention Center expansion revenue bond should be put a city-wide vote because it’s too big. As he told the Orange County Register:

“If the people of Anaheim are going to take on that kind of debt for this expansion, they should at least be able to vote on it in November because this is an extremely expensive price to pay for the amount of square footage that we get.”

For those of us who have been involved in Anaheim politics for a long time, that’s an interesting position for him to take.

In 1996, then-Councilman Tom Tait and the rest of the City Council (Bob Zemel, Lou Lopez, Frank Feldhaus and Mayor Tom Daly) unanimously approved the largest bond in the history of Anaheim: $560,000,000 in lease revenue bonds for the Anaheim Resort Improvements.

Tait and his colleagues approved them acting at the Anaheim Public Financing Authority and did it without putting it to a vote of the people. The final issuance amounted to $510,427,465.45. Adjusted for inflation, that would be a $850,000,000 bond today.

Mayor Tait thinks a $300 million revenue bond is too big for the city to approve without going to the voters, but had no problem voting for a bond three-times larger in current dollars without giving the people of Anaheim a say in the matter.

Another repudiation by the mayor from a previous position, which are becoming so common that hardly anyone bats an eye any longer when he does it.