LA Times: Is Disney Paying Its Fair Share In Anaheim

[Darkbeer1]

Here is a fun website to check out...

https://www.wincomeanaheimrisks.org/

And one more political hit piece

https://www.saynotodisney.com/

By the way, thanks for all the kind words about my comments, and that I have returned from the dead. (And thanks to all that donate blood, I needed a lot back in February).

 

[Disney Irish]

The whole point of PRT is small groups of people going to different locations. It makes no sense for a huge group of people between two points. You’re just creating congestion and duplicating costs versus just using something with higher capacity.

Actually that is not entirely true. While the original intent of PRT was for like you said small groups going to different locations, that is not what the system has turned into. PRT systems can be made in many different configurations based on needs including two points. And given that its going to just two points its even faster than other modes because the system is constantly moving, no stops along the way for street traffic or slowing down around a corner or blind spot.

So think of it, you have people lining up at the pickup and PRT cars are available in less than a minute and leaves after a minute or two wait to fill up. No more long waiting for a tram or bus to show up. No more long waiting for the tram or bus to leave. The line would move so much faster and clear out the people faster than either a tram or bus.

Anyways its a thought toward future technology, something Disney would have been all over in the past.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Actually that is not entirely true. While the original intent of PRT was for like you said small groups going to different locations, that is not what the system has turned into. PRT systems can be made in many different configurations based on needs including two points. And given that its going to just two points its even faster than other modes because the system is constantly moving, no stops along the way for street traffic or slowing down around a corner or blind spot.

So think of it, you have people lining up at the pickup and PRT cars are available in less than a minute and leaves after a minute or two wait to fill up. No more long waiting for a tram or bus to show up. No more long waiting for the tram or bus to leave. The line would move so much faster and clear out the people faster than either a tram or bus.

Anyways its a thought toward future technology, something Disney would have been all over in the past.

You seem to be using PRT to also describe WEDway and even more general people mover systems. Even then, using 10 cars to transport 40 people to the same destination is less efficient than one car transporting 40 people.

 

[Disney Irish]

You seem to be using PRT to also describe WEDway and even more general people mover systems. Even then, using 10 cars to transport 40 people to the same destination is less efficient than one car transporting 40 people.

PRT stands for Personal Rapid Transit or also called PAT for Personal Automated Transit and a few other terms. It covers all modes of autonomous people mover systems. There are quite a few in use all over the world. And yes WEDway would be covered under this.

You are aware that most of the newer systems carry more than 4 people, most of them carry 20+ people. Even so lets use your number, what is more efficient from a guest perspective. 10 cars picking up and transporting 40 people where all 40 people are at their destination in less than 5-10 minutes? Or one vehicle loading 40 people taking 5-10 minutes for that, then leaving going around traffic stopping at lights, etc. taking the trip in another 10-20 minutes? Time it sometime, from the time you load to the time you get to Toy Story lot and unload on a bus, its a lot longer than you think.

 

[lazyboy97o]

PRT stands for Personal Rapid Transit or also called PAT for Personal Automated Transit and a few other terms. It covers all modes of autonomous people mover systems. There are quite a few in use all over the world. And yes WEDway would be covered under this.

You are aware that most of the newer systems carry more than 4 people, most of them carry 20+ people. Even so lets use your number, what is more efficient from a guest perspective. 10 cars picking up and transporting 40 people where all 40 people are at their destination in less than 5-10 minutes? Or one vehicle loading 40 people taking 5-10 minutes for that, then leaving going around traffic stopping at lights, etc. taking the trip in another 10-20 minutes? Time it sometime, from the time you load to the time you get to Toy Story lot and unload on a bus, its a lot longer than you think.

PRT is not all people mover systems. It is specifically those systems that focus on more personal needs with very small vehicles.

 

[Disney Irish]

PRT is not all people mover systems. It is specifically those systems that focus on more personal needs with very small vehicles.

Whatever, its not worth arguing over the name. Call it PRT, call it a PeopleMover, call it GRT (Group Rapid Transit), call it whatever you want. I'm not talking about the individual PODs of 1-4 people which is what I think you are stuck on.

The point being is that a system of computerized cars of 20+ people on a guideway (not a monorail) can be faster and more efficient than the current modes of transportation being used to move people to the parking garages

As @Darkbeer1 has referenced in his recent posts, Disney has to come up with something better than the current modes, more trams and buses on the roadways are not going to cut it. Disney needs to be thinking about future technologies. So if the current systems don't meet the needs I'm sure WDI can design something better.

And as I said previously its something that Disney would have been all over in the past.

 

[TP2000]

As a nice point of reference on what Disneyland's "Fair!" share of taxes should be to fund Anaheim residents and the civic services they receive from Anaheim government, here's a map. Anaheim is the 10th largest city in California with 351,000 people. (That's more than Cincinnati, Ohio, the exact same as Honolulu and Tampa, but slightly less than Minneapolis.)

43% of the taxes for this sprawling city come from the 5% of its acreage noted as the Anaheim Resort shaded area just west of I-5.

 

[Darkbeer1]

As a nice point of reference on what Disneyland's "Fair!" share of taxes should be to fund Anaheim residents and the civic services they receive from Anaheim government, here's a map.

FYI, that is the Council District map. Disneyland is in District 4, Anaheim Hills is District 6, and West Anaheim is mainly District 1 and 2,

When I drive around the West Anaheim area, we can be in Buena Park, Fullerton, Stanton, Cypress, Garden Grove or an unincorporated area of the county. Places where one side of the street is one city, and another city on the other, which can get confusing.

Heck the new Gold's Gym I joined is called Anaheim, or Anaheim/Garden Grove, and on the corner of Katella and Euclid. Three corners are in Anaheim, the 4th one, where the Gym is located is, is the city of Garden Grove.

 

[lazyboy97o]

FYI, that is the Council District map. Disneyland is in District 4, Anaheim Hills is District 6, and West Anaheim is mainly District 1 and 2,

When I drive around the West Anaheim area, we can be in Buena Park, Fullerton, Stanton, Cypress, Garden Grove or an unincorporated area of the county. Places where one side of the street is one city, and another city on the other, which can get confusing.

Heck the new Gold's Gym I joined is called Anaheim, or Anaheim/Garden Grove, and on the corner of Katella and Euclid. Three corners are in Anaheim, the 4th one, where the Gym is located is, is the city of Garden Grove.

Not Southern California, but I know a guy who got out of a ticket because for about a mile the city limits extended along both sides of a road but not on the road itself.

 

[Darkbeer1]

Another one is the Adventure City Amusement Park on Beach Blvd.

Their address and part of their parking lot is in Anaheim, but the park itself is in Stanton, who gets the sales tax revenue. The city line goes halfway down the block (east/west)

http://ci.stanton.ca.us/Portals/0/D...2017-04-06-155152-993&timestamp=1507516032332

 

[Darkbeer1]

Getting back to the main article...

After doing some research on the OCR thread I started today, a good Question would be, did the city actually pay for the Mickey and Friends parking Structure?

Well, it was part of the overall deal, and this article helped remind me of the deal...

http://articles.latimes.com/1996-10-09/news/mn-52109_1_disneyland-expansion

>>In all, $450 million of city money will be invested in improvements to the city's tourism area. This includes street improvements, landscaping, utilities and a $90-million parking garage to be used mostly by visitors to the new theme park and, on a limited basis, by Convention Center visitors. The other $96 million will come from existing state, federal and regional transportation funds.

The city plans to issue $395 million worth of bonds to finance much of the work. Increased revenue from hotel and sales taxes from tourists and property tax revenue generated within the Disneyland Resort area is expected to pay off the bonds. In case of a shortfall in revenue, Disney has guaranteed the bond debt, agreeing to step in and pay investors if the city can't.

City officials insist that the project will not burden city taxpayers and in the end will strengthen the city economically.<<

So some of the funding of the structure came from the grants to improve transportation, as the structure and Ball Road overpass were designed to reduce freeway backups, support the carpool lane, and other related issues.

Then the other funding came from TOT revenue, and part of the deal was an increase in those taxes in creating the "Resort District", in which the majority of non-Disney Hotels agreed to the special district and the extra 2 % TOT that their guests (and of course, the Disney Hotel Guests) pay. It is those funds that pays off the bond. And while the city paid the bills using the bond funds, it never came out of the general fund. And Disney guaranteed the bond in case the TOT allocated funds the visitors pay wasn't enough.

So I would say no, the city didn't pay the parking structure costs. Then again, you could claim that Disney didn't pay for the expansion, it was paid for by the guests, the sponsors and the DtD businesses through lease and profit share clauses.

 

[Darkbeer1]

Let me add.

No Sales Tax revenue was used, but the additional shops and restaurants add more taxes, in which the city's share (1.25% of the 7.75% charged) goes straight into the General fund. (6% to the state, .25% to Orange County and .25% to "Measure M, a fund the Orange County collects for road and transportation projects).

Property taxes, while Proposition 13 keeps the base value the same (subject to up to 2% per year inflation rate. Any added improvements are added to the base value, and there was a LOT of improvements, and the city gets 18% of the 1% collected for its general fund.

http://www.lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/155

So the deal brought a lot of additional money to the city's general fund, and none of it went to Disney.

For example, for road repairs, the entire city gets the same amount, including the resort district (legally this has to be done), but then the TOT taxes collected in the Resort District can be added to the roads in the district. So while the district gets more money per mile of road to spend, the city general fund share is equal to the rest of the city. Same with Police and Fire, the Resort District uses TOT funds to supplement the standard service the entire city gets.

In recent deals with Disney, such as getting permission for Toy Story parking, the city required Disney to pay for a lot of upgrades to traffic lights between the freeway and the entrance, along with improvements to the city traffic control center, which is amazing. (I have been in it, though currently it is very hard to get in, because Homeland Security has a role in it.) Of course, the Convention Center helped pay for it with its profits, along with the owners of the Angels and Ducks. Also, some funding came from government grants and agencies, such as the OCTA.

So is Disney paying its fair share? There are a lot of things that the LA Times never mentioned.... Hopefully you can make your own decision after seeing more info, and I have missed some of it, as there are way too many angles to explore.

http://www.ocregister.com/2013/05/07/they-make-the-traffic-signals-green/

So is Disney paying its fair share? There are a lot of things that the LA Times never mentioned.... Hopefully you can make your own decision after seeing more info, and I have missed some of it, as there are way too many angles to explore.

 

[Darkbeer1]

I might have made some mis-calculations above, page 2 of this document has the Bond Payment sources.

https://www.anaheim.net/DocumentCenter/View/909

And the actual 2017-18 city budget, the first pages talk about funds coming into the city.

https://www.anaheim.net/DocumentCenter/View/17412

 

[Darkbeer1]

OK, some more history and different viewpoints.

Walt Disney (the man) attitude was to try and get the government out of business when he decided to build Walt Disney World. Yes, he did work with the state of Florida, but to make deals to get thing like the right to govern itself (Reedy Creek) and basically still has carte blanch on its Florida owned property. It has worked out quite well for the company, even with some tweeks to how the area is governed.

On the other hand The Walt Disney Company took the let's have governments compete with each other when it was planning EuroDisney. the had France and Spain competing, and France won due to better tax breaks, than Spain. Ineteresting comments from Roy Disney himself.

http://jimhillmedia.com/editor_in_c...hire-and-i-got-was-this-horrible-sunburn.aspx

>>We should have built Euro Disney in Spain. The site that the Imagineers had chosen there had far better weather. More to the point, this area already had a strong tourism-based economy in place, a pool of people going-on-holiday that we could have pulled our Guests from. Plus a great rail system," I remember Roy saying. "But the French offered Eisner far better financial terms. They were willing to give the Company all sorts of financial incentives and tax breaks if we built this project in France rather than in Spain. So in the end, Michael chose the scheme over the dream."<<

And the Tokyo was a gift. Another Company came to Disney. Hey, we have powerful connection in Japan including the government. We can get the land, the financing and all the government approvals and needed upgrades to infrastructure like transportation to/from the park. All you have to do is agree for us to use your name and rights, and we will write you large checks every year for support and a share of the profits. It was such a good deal, it was a no brainer.

So which way was the best? Looks like the EuroDisney decision was a mistake, and in reality, the Spanish Deal was better.

Japan was a pre-packaged deal, and turned out to be a great deal.

But IMHO, the Florida decision was the best, buy as much land as possible, tell the State to let us build, and stay out of our hair. We will create such a demand for the area, you will get your new revenue for building up the surrounding area, and from all the people we will hire in construction jobs, then the service industry jobs. We don't want much (basically things Disney couldn't do itself, such as freeways to the property) and we will pay for all the costs on our property. in return, you will only get the basic taxes that other land owners and companies pay, such as property taxes, and let us run things.

I would love to see the Orlando Sentinel newspaper do an article.... "Is Disney paying its fair share in Orlando?"

 

[Darkbeer1]

FYI, I just realized, this board is much more Florida focused, so I went to the WDW section of the forums and asked the same basic question, but in regards to WDW and Florida/Orlando. (Yes, I know, the park isn't within the city limits, kinda like how Universal Studios Hollywood isn't it in the city of Los Angeles and its suburb of Florida... Most of it is on unincorporated land controlled by Los Angeles County.

https://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/is-disney-paying-its-fair-share-in-orlando.934737/

Should be interesting to see the responses there, and compare them to the SoCal thoughts.

 

[Darkbeer1]

While dealing with bring in the Trash Cans, thought about this....

How about Disney (and others) dealing with tax breaks for TV/Film productions...

Vancouver has become a major production area due to tax breaks.

And Australia, New Zealand, Georgia, Alabama and others.

Who Wants to be a Millionaire? moved to Las Vegas due to a new tax cut offered.

Why is ESPN main studios in Bristol, Connecticut. They admit it was due to tax breaks,

California is once again offering tax credits of film/TV production to keep projects here.

In Florida, during the days Disney and Universal building its Studio parks, Florida pushed for "real" production facility, and to be honest, both pretty much failed, especially Disney. Universal did Ok, especially with Nickelodeon. And they still do some filming at Universal in Florida.

 

[Jedi Stitch]

Disney tried to do that decades ago and got shut down. Most of the properties were family owned, and some still are. They talked to each other, and figured out quickly when some "independent" was really Disney. They helped each other out if their was a financial issue, and agreed to sell to each other first, and never to Disney. The Strawberry field where Toy Story is today is a classic example of it,

By the way, the TOT taxes, sales tax, etc. are exactly the same staying on property or off.

Ok, folks, here is some Insider info very few folks know about, and isn't really discussed.

How did Disney get ahold of the Carousel?

Well ,the property ended up as part of the Wincome Group, which has routes from one of the original non-Disney hotel owners families.

Disney was desperate for a piece of property to make the Eastern Gateway project. Disney recently got the commercial property on Manchester in a cash deal, which included taking over the lease of the USCIS building. The property was thought of as not very good at the time, but Disney did pay a premium for it.

So Wincome was working on long term plans, such as potential rebuilding of properties they owned. Disney started to talk to them about how they could work together in the future. So a deal was made, Wincome needed some funds to start new major projects, Disney wanted upscale hotels in the area, so they agreed to work on the council to get the 4-star rebates for both of them. (It was already done for the GardenWalk properties, and Wincome had the Anaheim Plaza Hotel they got from Good Hope, and was worried about the new Hotels, currently planned for a JW Marriott, but was going to be a non-Disney owned, but Disney Managed property at one time.

So Wincome knew they had to do something with the property, and did not want a Disney operated property there. Wincome was thinking about a "business" hotel for the Anabella, but hadn't decided yet. So the deal was, Disney would pay a premium price for the Carousel, agree to not manage off-property hotels, and use their political clout to get the rebates for Wincome approved. The city was interested, but wanted a gentleman's agreement for a true Business Hotel with multiple meeting rooms next to the convention center, and even work on a special walkway between the convention center and the Wincome project. Disney was planning a 4th Hotel anyway, but hadn't decided on a timeline, but was looking to match it up with the Galaxy Edge opening. So Disney was onboard with adjusting its timeframe to match up with the Wincome projects, since the Eastern Gateway had a higher priority than a new Hotel. So basically everyone was going to be a winner. Of course, the outsiders, such as UNITE Here who truly wants to be at the top, but keeps losing in Anaheim, and causes the leadership a LOT of frustrations, and the Mayor Tait wasn't part of the discussion, which made him an outsider. and why he always wants revenge on the "old council".

So that is a brief summary of one of the main reasons the "powers to be" got the LA Times hit piece written and published to time up with the start of the upcoming City Election Campaigns. (Candidates for Mayor are kicking off their campaigns).

Thanks for the Info, I kinda figured it was hard for Disney to quietly buy up property anymore. The guy who used to be the Manager at the Denny's has a place near where I live. Interesting talking to him about how things were.

 

[Deleted member 107043]

I certainly wouldn't expect Iger or Disney to go this far with their Civic mindedness, but wow, Elon Musk and Tesla are setting a new bar for how to be a good corporate citizen.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/09/elo...ricity-grid-is-a-game-changer-commentary.html

 

[Jedi Stitch]

I certainly wouldn't expect Iger or Disney to go this far with their Civic mindedness, but wow, Elon Musk and Tesla are setting a new bar for how to be a good corporate citizen.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/09/elo...ricity-grid-is-a-game-changer-commentary.html

Not to get too off topic, but we are. The Political machine is doing the slow churn, because one side wants the other to look bad. Also, Puerto Rico as the Territory it is, did vote down statehood 3 times in the past. Any Politician will tell you, it look bad to let a territory go to crap, but it even looks worse when a state needs help and the funding go to another place. It will always be political, they choose to be a territory not ever wanting to be the 51st state, then cry out they are not being fairly helped, when as a territory they are semi-autonomous. Sounds mean to say, but then it is the truth. With that rant out of the way, yes I'm passionate about statehood vs territory and the rules and laws that specifically govern each. Disney, probably could only send out Communication specialists and string cable, maybe. Maybe some Generators for Hospitals and emergency shelter, but they are not full on conglomerate that could rebuild a territory.

 

[Deleted member 107043]

Disney, probably could only send out Communication specialists and string cable, maybe. Maybe some Generators for Hospitals and emergency shelter, but they are not full on conglomerate that could rebuild a territory.

My post wasn't meant to imply that Disney ought to assist Hurricane Maria victims, but to illustrate how Tesla is shaping the conversation around corporate brand, and community involvement and investment. Disney wants concessions in Anaheim then how about building affordable housing for its workers or picking up the bill for the Anaheim Resort light rail project, etc.