Politicians plotted to sell the home stadium of the Los Angeles Angels to the team’s owner Arturo Moreno months before telling the public, as per a recent lawsuit filed in the Superior Court. Usually, such a move is illegal as per California’s open meeting act.
Amid lease negotiations back in 2019, Anaheim’s councilors secretly chose to sell this stadium, as per court declarations, which included a declaration from the erstwhile manager of Anaheim city, Chris Zapata.
Anaheim’s Mayor Harry S. Sidhu persuaded his colleagues to buy the property long before the unveiling of its sale to the public in December 2020.
As per Zapata’s declaration, in the August 2019 City Council session, Sidhu stated that the Los Angeles Angels had offered to purchase the stadium property, instead of carrying on with its lease. The councilors talked about whether to continue the lease or sell the stadium property during the session and decided to sell it to that team. Councilor Jose Moreno was part of that session and is supporting Zapata’s account of the events.
As per Moreno’s declaration, the councilors in the session were told that the baseball team had offered to acquire the stadium property instead of proceeding with the lease. The councilors discussed not only selling the property or continuing the lease in the session but also the worth of the appraisal to decide how much the property would be worth in a sale transaction.
The public is realizing those facts as attorneys prepare for the February 2022 trial about the stadium lawsuit in the Superior Court.
The People’s Homeless Task Force is suing Anaheim as it allegedly made the deal secretly and filed its opening brief. As per the task force, there were secret conferences between Anaheim’s councilors and staff, alongside the secret choice to turn the property lease into a sale that breached California’s transparency law.
As per Lawyer Kelly Aviles of the task force, they talked to Zapata regarding what they wished to have in the agreement with individual briefings. Aviles argues that they should have done it in a meeting that would have let the public realize what their councilors were championing. However, Aviles claims that they said numerous times that they would like to keep it secret and private. As per Aviles, city officials kept on sidestepping the transparency law. Aviles claims that whenever there was a legal requirement to perform something publicly, it appeared that they wondered how they could do it.
Anaheim is embroiled in a situation involving a lawsuit about the transparency law and a California Surplus Land Act breach-related lawsuit from the Department of Housing and Community Development. According to the California Department of Housing and Community Development, the stadium in Anaheim was not sold legally as per the act.
This lawsuit looks to get Judge David A. Hoffer from the Orange County Superior Court overturn the property sale and tell councilors to do the entire process again in public.
As per Aviles, lawyers should confirm that a deal is done transparently and in a way that adheres to the law. Aviles stated that the public has to know whether there are any aspects in the deal that a counselor wished to see. If it is done in secret, Aviles claims that counselors would not have any accountability.
Anaheim is yet to respond to the brief with a court filing. Anaheim spokesperson Mike Lyster stated that the US city supports the property sale. As per Lyster, Anaheim is confident in its whole process, including proper closed session meetings and directions to staffers at those events. As for Lyster, it is a politically motivated lawsuit.
Lyster stated that while baseball brings political positions and strong emotions in Anaheim, there is more to the lawsuit than the aforementioned. Some do not wish to have a stadium deal go forward; there is a lot around it reflecting that. While people can have their views, something does not become unlawful just because it does not go one’s way. Lyster also stated that Anaheim’s community wants baseball to be here.
As per the task force, Anaheim’s negotiations over the stadium’s sale violated California’s Ralph M. Brown Act, which is the transparency law that regulates local government briefings. Anaheim’s councilors did not publicly talk about transforming a lease into a sale, which would violate the said law.
As per the task force, Anaheim attempted to discuss the transformation with an exception in that act, which applies to just price and payment terms.
As per the brief, the Council inappropriately evoked the exception during its meetings between August and September 2019 about selling the property following a proposal that Anaheim had got.
Councilors approved the stadium sale proposal away from the public in December 2019 and then city officials unveiled the plans publicly. On December 20, 2019, almost all the councilors approved the property sale.
The stadium in Anaheim is being given to Los Angeles Angels owner Arturo Moreno’s SRB Management, a company formed a few days before councilors approved a property sale.
As per Delaware business filings, the company was formed on November 20, 2019, about 100 days after Mayor Sidhu brought the offer to his peers for the first time.
Almost all Anaheim councilors finalized the property sale in 2020, but councilors Jose Moreno and Denise Barnes disagreed with it. Moreno is not related to Los Angeles Angels Owner Moreno.
The starting price of the stadium was reduced so that Anaheim could hold onto around two acres of land for a new fire station and water well. Almost all the councilors were fine with removing around $170 million from the price, to subsidize around 450 affordable housing units and build a 7-acre park.
Meanwhile, Anaheim officials have to cope with the lawsuit related to the violation from the housing department. In a failed bid to avoid that violation, SRB Management and Anaheim’s officials offered to increase the number of affordable housing units to be constructed to 777, as per a statement on the city’s website.
