In Oakland, where the city is considering a baseball village for track and field, a city council member has proposed a popular vote on the project. Let the people decide!
The mayor politely declined the idea. The people decide their representatives, who then deal with complex issues of citizen financing and land use before casting their ballot.
“It seems unreasonable to expect residents to have the opportunity to do the kind of due diligence on their own time to make an informed vote,” Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf told Oaklandside.
It follows, of course, that if the people don’t like the result, they can vote out their representatives. That brings us to Anaheim, where the City Council Tuesday ratified what should be one of the final permits for the Angels’ quest for their very own baseball village.
There have been no popular votes in this long and convoluted saga — so long that Josh Hamilton occupied the Angels’ outfield when it began.
Anaheim Mayor Harry Sidhu lobbied by promising a deal with the Angels. He fulfilled that promise, an achievement he can trumpet when he’s re-elected later this year.
Sidhu did himself a disservice at Tuesday’s council meeting. To resolve the state housing commission’s violation of the Affordable Housing Act, the city has agreed to pay $96 million to build affordable housing outside of the Angel Stadium site.
Sidhu called this amount “new money” paid to the city by Angels owners Arte Moreno and his development company.
Rob Fabela, the city’s attorney, had to explain that the $320 million land sale to Moreno’s firm had required $124 million in affordable housing loans — essentially a rebate so Moreno would include affordable housing in his baseball village. Now, Fabela said, the city would split that $124 million: $96 million for the Affordable Housing Fund and the other $28 million that remains with Moreno’s company.
As far as this “new money” is concerned, here’s how it works: the city gave Moreno $124 million in loans, and Moreno returned $96 million so the city could use that money elsewhere. That relieved Moreno of his obligation to build 466 units of affordable housing without a penny in new net revenue for the city.
And while the settlement with the state promised nearly 1,500 units of affordable housing on and adjacent to the Angel Stadium property, city officials said the promise cannot be fulfilled until the commitment is renegotiated with Moreno’s company and additional funds are made available — by State, federal government or anywhere else – is secured.
The prospect of most of these apartments being separated from the stadium grounds worried two councillors, which drew a sharp reply from another councillor.
“We already had affordable housing on the site before [the state housing agency] involved,” Councilor Trevor O’Neil said.
Whether Anaheim voters like this deal ultimately rests on this commendable picture: Moreno’s company is renovating or replacing the stadium and developing the surrounding land at its expense; The city is getting housing it badly needs, plus tax revenue from a site it hasn’t developed in half a century.
To get that deal, the city had to leave money on the table as the land is worth more without a stadium eating up some of the property. Based on the city-commissioned estimate, the land without baseball was worth $500 million, so the city left $180 million on the table.
That’s the price of keeping baseball, which even council members who opposed the deal insisted they wanted to do. The housing and parkland development loans — additional subsidies for city priorities — left the city $150 million in cash from the sale. In three decades, the city says, the new tax revenue could more than quadruple that amount.
But appraisal is just a fancy word for appraisal, and the city never advertised the land, even after the state housing authority said it could have fixed the breach.
At a video conference to announce the deal Monday, I asked Sidhu why the city refused to put the land up for tender. He thanked me for the question, but paused before explaining.
“Our process was very fair and straightforward,” Sidhu said. “We believed in our process.”
On Tuesday, another voice emerged.
“It was a corrupt deal without a bid,” Ashleigh Aitken said.
Aitken is running against Sidhu for mayor. Saying the deal includes $96 million in new money, she said, is a “shell game.”
Anaheim officials have been wondering when Aitken might speak up. The deal with Angel Stadium is all but done, and their campaign website makes no mention of it.
“Everyone runs their campaign differently,” she said. “I try not to just run my campaign through Facebook rants. It’s just not what I do and I don’t find it effective.”
It might be too late. Sidhu has authority and now the Angels deal he promised to secure. By the time November’s elections roll around, the details of the Angel Stadium saga could be forgotten.
Said Sidhu, “We know that the vast majority of the community supports our plan.”
Aitken said: “I haven’t heard anyone outside of the council and chamber of commerce – what I like to call the echo chamber – who is positive about this deal.”
The fate of a sports team can be overstated in a campaign, overshadowing what matters most to residents in their daily lives. In Oakland, the Raiders and Warriors left town and Schaaf was reelected. In Anaheim, the Angels have extended their stay until 2050.
November’s election is the popular vote on the Angel Stadium deal. If the Angels somehow play well into October, Sidhu wins in a landslide.
