According to the Anaheim City Clerk’s website, the first big donors to left-wing Chicano Studies professor Jose Moreno’s city council candidacy were Brian Chuchua and SaveAnaheim.com’s Jason Young.
Moreno filed to run for Anaheim City Council on August 8. The next day, Chuchua wrote him a check for the maximum contribution of $1,900 and Young cut one for $1,000.
Chuchua is a retired businessman, two-time council candidate, one of the two (known) members of CATER (Coalition of Anaheim Taxpayers for Economic Responsibility) and helped found the Anaheim Small Business Association. Which begs the question of why he maxed out to the most left-wing, anti-business candidate in the race? Is imposing a gate tax, burdening Anaheim businesses with retention ordinances and killing jobs by imposing a “living wage” the economically responsible thing to do for Anaheim taxpayers? Of course not, but philosophically coherent action isn’t one should expect from the political precincts inhabited by Chuchua and those he follows.
The only other contributions so far to the Moreno campaign are a $1,000 transfer from his school board campaign account, a $1,777 personal loan, and a $1,900 contribution from United Food and Commercial Workers Local 324 PAC. We won’t know about contributions of less than a $1,000 until the next round of campaign reports, due on October 6.
Let’s be generous and say Moreno’s campaign has received another $2,000 or so in donations of less than a thousand, which would give him $10,000. That’s nowhere near enough to run a competitive race, and his late entry doesn’t give him much time to raise a robust warchest. Most likely, his strategy will be to draft off the union and progressive PAC money being funneled into the Yes on Measure L campaign, which will likely feature him prominently in its voter communications. Yes on L walkers (and walkers for Jose Solorio and Sharon Quirk-Silva) will also drop his literature.
The dynamics of the council races are interesting. As the incumbents, Kris Murray and Gail Eastman have very big advantages in terms of name ID, ballot title and resources. The last time an incumbent councilmember lost in Anaheim was Richard Chavez in 2006 – and he was only narrowly beaten by Lucille Kring, a former councilmember who was a known quantity to voters. You’d have to go back many years before that to find another example.
Moreno does garner some benefit from having so many Republicans on the ballot and only one other Democrat, but even that would diminish if Team Tait implodes. And it’s highly unlikely Moreno will make it to November unscathed in the mail box. For example, I don’t think your ordinary Democratic voters will be enamored of voting for a candidate who sued the city he wants to run and in the process enriched his attorneys at the expense of Anaheim taxpayers.
CATER stands for Cowards Against Tait Enemies Relentlessly
I can remember Brian Chuchua getting the OCGOP endorsement a few years ago but now he is the biggest financial contributor to the most progressive city council candidate. That’s going to go over well if he ever asks for an endorsement again. That is if he is still a Republican, he might have done a “I found the light and I’m a Democrat because I just found out they champion the ideas i believe in” political move that Dr. Jose says. That’s really disappointing, Mr jeep.
Can we stop pretending that a Disney gate tax is some new, radical idea? Republican Anaheim mayor Fred Hunter supported it back in the early 90’s as a funding mechanism for Disney resort expansion. Democrat Mayor William Thom pondered it even further back in ’75.
Hunter looked at it as the funding source for resort district improvement bonds. What Moreno has supported isn’t limited to Disneyland and would be a general revenue source, not a funding mechanism for a specific bond.
A ’91 LA Times article reports that the gate tax would have applied to other entertainment venues in the city. What’s funny is that gate tax opponents said, if passed, the cost of admission would rise. Now there’s no gate tax and those ticket prices keep on rising anyway!
So remind me why a gate tax is a good idea? Because Fred Hunter floated it? Hunter also pushed a utility tax hike – which Daly opposed and used to help him beat Hunter.
Is a gate tax OK because prices tend to rise over time, and so it doesn’t matter if government does it’s part by loading on taxes?
Doesn’t an ad in the OC Weekly cost more than it did 20 years ago? We should have had an ad tax all along since the price keeps on rising anyway!
How big a check did Greg Diamond write? What about Vern Nelson?
I think this may have contributed to Hunter’s demise as Mayor. If I remember correctly, Democrat Tom Daly took him out.
But that’s all history. Dr. Jose obviously doesn’t think that imposing a gate tax at Disneyland won’t cause them to pass that on to annual passholders.
Maybe he understands this but there will be plenty of Annual passholders in Anaheim that will not like it.
I have NEVER known Greg Diamond to pay for anything!
He’s the guy that packs up the leftovers at committee meetings and takes them home!