The Anaheim City Council’s majority uses its authority against the members who dissent, without much mercy even on matters such as how to do meetings. So, you could imagine how little mercy it would show on more serious disputes. So, it was a revealing reprieve when in November 2019 the council put aside the passive-aggressive discussion for uniting on privileges offered to councilpersons as free passes to Angel Stadium- and Honda Center-based events. The members could use the admission passes or give those to others.
OC Weekly’s August 2019 cover story revealed a system of political patronage where councilpersons gave their campaign contributors, allies and friends access to Anaheim suites for entertainment and sporting events in the stadiums. Then, a civil rights activist from Anaheim, namely Duane Roberts, dared the city’s council to include a talk on the policy in its August meeting’s agenda.
After that, councilperson Jose Moreno demanded the review be added to a future council agenda to make things clear.
The mayor of Anaheim Harry Sidhu did not postpone the discussion about the then-issue item with no vote as it eventually emerged. It was evident at an initial phase that there would not be any controversial discussion. While politics was perhaps at play, Moreno was confident about the policy.
To whittle it all down, Ticket Masters looked at ticket disclosure documents from June 2018 to July 2019. After that review, Ticket Masters discovered much information, including the below-mentioned.
- Anaheim First’s members got tickets worth $33,630 to events. A large number of those tickets came from the councilpersons who voted for donating $25,000 so that Anaheim First could contract out a citywide survey.
- Two councilpersons who reported gift receipts from Disney offered Carrie Nocella’s Disney lobbyist husband LA Angels game tickets for free.
- Over 50% of the admission passes that councilpersons distributed were to reward or attract volunteer service. Anaheim First’s member Ernesto Medrano collected tickets worth around $7,000 over 12 months under an exception.
- Anaheim Blog’s Matt Cunningham got tickets over time from the councilpersons he wrote favorably of. Mayor Sidhu was one of those members.
- The forward-thinking Democratic Party member Moreno channeled the passes back to those who played a part in his US election campaigns.
Following Ticket Masters, the Anaheim First group’s members kept getting Los Angeles Angels game tickets with suites for free. Councilperson Jordan Brandman indirectly offered lobbyist Peter Mitchell passes to Elton John’s concerts at Anaheim’s Honda Center. That meant Brandman gave the passes as per the not-for-profit exception offered to the APA (Anaheim Police Association). Anaheim did not post disclosure forms in a month of the events the passes were handed out that summer, thus breaching its policy.
Anyhow, all that was a case of making a big deal about a trifle at the August 2019 council meeting. Rather, the issue for councilpersons was about what should they do with scrap tickets. A few tickets were likely to go unutilized, said Moreno. He thought that situation of tickets going unused was a pity because those were the public’s passes. The councilpersons could become the first to use the passes, unlike the public.
The councilperson recommended discovering a way of posting unutilized tickets to allow any inhabitants to claim for those. Another councilperson Lucille Kring gave the council’s staff the leftover passes with the ticket administrator’s help. As for Brandman, that was a good idea, so he made another recommendation of seeking ticket takers through Nextdoor.
Councilperson Trevor O’Neil took 17 events’ tickets in his name over the initial few months of his tenure, and he remained secretively silent on that.
Anyhow, there were curious event ticket filings. In February 2016, ex-councilperson Kris Murray offered Willdan Group four tickets to the Anaheim Ducks games. Why? Because the Anaheim-based group was a considerable income source for her when she served as a councilwoman. Willdan Group’s name came up in the filing portion typically reserved for nonprofits. Anyhow, the disclosure document said it was a volunteer, an exception generally reserved for people.
Since 2019, Willdan Group has been operating to make a profit, and its stock has been traded on the market NASDAQ. The organization earned a revenue of around $270 million the year before. Murray’s dubious 802 filings served as a sign of how several councilpersons saw tickets as freebies for their rich friends.
Murray and the city did not respond to the media’s request for comments. Mark Richard Daniels of Anaheim Cultural and Heritage Commission spotted Lucille Kring at an Anaheim suite to see the 2018 playoff match between the Ducks and San Jose Sharks. Former councilperson James Vanderbilt gave Daniels tickets to watch that match.
Only, when OC Weekly looked at Anaheim’s online site, there were no ticket disclosures for April 2018. That violated Anaheim’s policy, and it went beyond the benchmark of the Fair Political Practices Commission.
It appeared that there was more to discuss the city’s policy than how to get rid of scrap tickets once political friends, contributors and allies accessed those first. Anyhow, that would involve a willingness from councilpersons to look at and deal with their privileges.
As for Duane Roberts, the amount of evidence that showed the broad misuse of the Anaheim ticket system was unimportant. Why? Because no one would publicly admit that they offered their campaign supporters and rich friends tickets worth thousands of US dollars.