Anaheim Observer Civic affairs in OC's largest city.

Hari Lal, an attorney running for Anaheim City Council from District 6, has falsely claimed endorsements from Assemblyman Tom Daly and Anaheim Councilman Avelino Valencia. He also submitted a “if I don’t hear from you, I’ll assume you said yes” endorsement request to a current member of the Orange County Board of Supervisors. Taken together, they call into question the ...

[Editor’s Note: this article was originally published the evening of September 13, but has since been updated with additional information. I sent several e-mails to Mr. Lal yesterday asking for additional information and clarification regarding his delinquent property taxes and his explanation for it. Mr. Lal has not responded.] In a September 8 post on his campaign Facebook page, District ...

Tomorrow night, the Anaheim City Council will vote on a $6.6 million proposal to purchase the red-tagged Covered Wagon Motel on Beach Boulevard as part of its ongoing efforts to revitalize the troubled corridor and West Anaheim in general. The city intends to re-develop the property as a mixed-use development. The squalid, 70-room motel was shut down by city officials ...

A militant hotel workers union hopes to place on the November 2024 ballot an initiative to impose a $25 an hour minimum wage on Anaheim hotels and event centers – while exempting hotels and event centers from that and other burdensome mandates if they agree to unionize. On August 29, UNITE-HERE Local 11 filed paperwork with the Anaheim City Clerk ...

On Monday, the Anaheim Planning Commission voted unanimously to approve the ocV!BE project – an ambitious, 95-acre sports/entertainment/dining/residential/office mixed development project proposed by Henry and Susan Samueli that will transform the space surrounding the Honda Center. The Samueli’s own the Anaheim Ducks hockey team and Anaheim Arena Management, the entity that manages the city-owned Honda Center arena.  The Samueli’s purchased ...

In an article on Monday about city council and school board races in Orange County, the Voice of OC quoted Fullerton College political science professor Jodi Balma: “Balma also noted there’s an organized effort to elect conservatives to local school boards, but no similar effort on the left.” Really? If so, that effort has overlooked the board of education for ...

Angels Baseball announced today that owner Arte Moreno is exploring selling the team, which he has owned for 20 years. The announcement was posted earlier today on the Angels Twitter account: The announcement comes on the heels of the implosion of the agreement with the city by Moreno-led SRB Management to buy the stadium site for $320 million and commit ...

One of the claims made by proponents of district elections used to make is they would spur greater political competition and encourage more residents to run for council. So far, there are barely enough candidates in each of Anaheim’s council districts to hold an election. In Districts 2 and 3, only two candidates qualified in each district. The filing deadline ...

Anaheim mayoral candidate Lorri Galloway has come out against Councilman Jose F. Moreno’s plan for a 2% gate tax on large entertainment, sports and recreation venues, which Moreno is asking the city council to place on the November 2022 ballot. “I am opposed to requiring a gate tax without a defined need to do so,” Galloway, a former two-term councilmember, ...

Tomorrow evening the Anaheim City Council will take up a proposal by Councilman Jose F. Moreno to place a 2% gate tax on the November ballot. Moreno has advocated for such a tax for years. It is highly unlikely Moreno’s gate tax proposal will make it to the ballot: the city charter requires at least a two-thirds majority vote by ...