Once again, the November 2016 election was not a mandate by ANY reason.
http://www.anaheimblog.net/2017/10/02/la-times-disney-anaheim-sins-of-omission/
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If case you missed the second installment of the LA Times’s two-part, one-dimensional series on Anaheim and Disney, here’s executive summary:
Two anti-Disney candidates – Jose F. Moreno and Arturo Ferreras – ran for Anaheim City Council in November 2016. Disney spent a lot of money on council campaigns. Ferreras lost big and Moreno barely won. This represents a voter shift away from Disney.
To read reporter Daniel Miller’s telling of the District 3 and 4 elections, the only real player was Disney, and therefore Moreno’s squeaker victory can be read as an anti-Disney backlash. Other factors that materially contributed to the outcome are ignored. The article’s biased is even more pronounced due to the reporter’s quoting of anti-Disney individuals without identifying them as such.
Some examples:
Outgunned financially, Moreno’s chances appeared slim. But he hammered away at the idea that corporate subsidies had created “two Anaheims.”
Moreno was outspent by a significant margin, but not outgunned. He had built up some name ID from running for city council in 2014, and had never really stopped running. He had the endorsement of the Democratic Party of Orange County, thereby benefiting from intense Democratic voter contact in the district. And his campaign spent nearly $60,000, more than sufficient in a district with only 19,000 voters. He also had Mayor Tom Tait campaigning strongly on his behalf. Miller ignores these and other important factors.
Miller notes Moreno was the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit to led to the Anaheim city council by voting districts for the first time in 2016. However, when discussing the disparity between spending for and against Moreno, Miller neglects to mention that by-district elections can blunt such funding disparities. There’s only so much mail campaigns can stuff into a district before the electorate is super-saturated with political messaging. And District 3 voters were being deluged with campaign mail not only for the council race, but from the hyper-competitive SD29 and AD65 races.
Consequently, a vigorous ground game becomes relatively more important, and in this respect Moreno and Brandman were competing on more than equal terms. In addition to his own volunteers, the militant hotel workers union UNITE-HERE Local 11 deployed a small army of precinct walkers on Moreno’s behalf in the final weeks of the campaign.
Moreno’s message resonated. His victory — in one of the tightest races in Anaheim history — helped flip the balance of power on the City Council.
Can we really say Moreno’s message “resonated” when 64% of District 3 voters cast their ballots for somebody else?
Miller goes on to cite current concerns of Anaheim residents:
Poverty, declining income and rising crime are all contributing to a creeping restiveness. The city’s crime rate, after dipping earlier this decade, increased 14% from 2014 to 2016, according to data from the FBI. It has risen 1% since 2000.
Several Anaheim residents said they want more of the city’s tax revenue spent on making neighborhoods safer and tackling homelessness — a mushrooming problem that has drawn headlines as a large encampment of people has formed near Angel Stadium.
Anaheim residents are fed up with crime and homelessness – but this was hardly a factor in Moreno’s election, and is undermining his re-election prospects. Candidate Moreno supported repeal of the anti-campaign ordinance, which he criticized as having been enacted “to push the homeless out of the parks.” At a council meeting earlier this year he stated his belief that increased enforcement — which is precisely what his constituents are demanding – would make the homeless situation worse.<<
So the council went from 5 to 7 members in 2016, and due to the way the new districts were split up and which districts got to vote in 2016, Dr. Moreno won by 72 votes, with less than 36% of the District 3 voters. (He got 4,647 votes).
No obvious reaction, in fact, many think when the city votes in November 2016 for a new Mayor, plus District 2 and 6 finally get to vote for a councilmember, plus Dr. Moreno's seat is up for re-election, the council will once again not be "Anti-Disney".
I was working a political event last Thursday to repeal the California new gas and diesel taxes, plus increased DMV fees. Multiple DLR CM's came up to request multiple petitions to take back to work to gather signature, due to the increased driving costs to and from work. It looks like the constitutional amendment will easily get it's goal of 1 million gathered signatures by January. (over 100,000 were gathered in the first week). And it was just reported that the state will have a $7.5 billion surplus in 2018-2019. Seems like we don't need new taxes.
