[ad_1]
Anaheim officials will no longer have to disclose impromptu meetings and phone calls with lobbyists, developers and business interests related to city matters on their public calendars they post online.
The public calendar policy was created as a part of a series of reforms in the wake of the Anaheim corruption scandal that broke after federal agents and independent investigators concluded Disneyland resort interests and lobbyists hold undue influence over city hall.
The scandal also saw the collapse of the Angel Stadium land sale and former Mayor Harry Sidhu resign and plead guilty to corruption charges.
In the wake of that scandal, city officials enacted a series of reforms at the tail end of 2023 that included heightened reporting of meetings on official calendars, expanding lobbyist registration and appointing an ethics officer to work under the city attorney.
On Tuesday, officials edged back one of those central reforms related to letting people know who officials meet with, voting unanimously to loosen disclosure mandates on unscheduled private meetings and calls related to city business on their public calendar policy.
[Read: Is Anaheim About to Gut a New Transparency Measure?]
At the same time, city leaders also amended the policy to mandate officials disclose the public events they attend in their official capacity – something officials spend substantial time discussing near the start of city council meetings.
Mayor Ashleigh Aitken said at the meeting that the policy was created to restore the public’s trust after the scandal.
“When we brought this forward the first time, it really stemmed from an obligation to restore the public’s faith in our service and making sure that our intentions were true,” she said.
“While our work is not done, I think giving us the flexibility to put more than is required and just to acknowledge that the public posting is meant to be a floor and not a ceiling, lets us have more flexibility to publish things.”
Posting a public calendar was something Aitken had been doing before the policy was implemented amid resident demands for a more transparent government
It is also a change Aitken pointed to in her last state of the city when she said Anaheim was “on the cutting edge of having the most transparent government in Orange County.”
Jose Moreno, a former city council member who was critical of the secretive nature of the rushed Angel Stadium deal, said in a Monday phone interview that it wasn’t that critical for officials to report their attendance at public events like ribbon cutting ceremonies as it was to report meetings with special interests.
“The concerns that emanated from the corruption scandal … is really those meetings around special interests that were held in private, that were rarely reported, that were out of the public eye,” he said.
Moreno also said officials should report on their calendars if the person they met or spoke with was a campaign donor and that there should be consequences for elected leaders who aren’t reporting their meetings.
Changes to Anaheim Public Official Calendar Policy
Top city executive staff have said the changes to the one-year-old policy were suggested after City Manager Jim Vanderpool’s office received questions on what events and interactions have to be reported.
Artin Berjikly, the city’s ethics officer, said the policy was not intended to document every single interaction public officials have and the changes aim to balance transparency with practical reporting guidelines.
“I do want to say also that there is no state law that requires a public official to maintain a public calendar. Anaheim is being very transparent with this policy and forward thinking,” he said, adding officials can also disclose other interactions not mandated by the policy at their discretion.
The original policy that was implemented about a year ago required all meetings and calls related to city business be disclosed whether scheduled or not.
“Posted calendars shall include all non-internal city-related appointments, calls and meetings with members of the public, businesses, developers, union representatives, consultants, and lobbyists,” reads the original policy.
The newly amended policy encourages officials to report unscheduled meetings and calls about city related business but does not mandate that they do so.
The amended policy will also introduce a host of new disclosure exemptions.
The exemptions include not having to report campaign-related events, events attended for fun and not related to city business, and the use of a free ticket to attend a concert or sports game at city owned venues like Angel Stadium, which will be disclosed on a separate form.
To view Anaheim city council public calendars, click here.
A Corruption Scandal, Mock Meetings & a Secret Retreat
Officials in Anaheim first adopted the public calendar policy after an independent corruption investigation report painted a picture of loose oversight on lobbyists, developer favoritism, influence peddling by Disneyland Resort interests through the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce and a disregard for California’s open meeting and public record laws.
[Read: Anaheim Officials to Publicly Post Online Who They Meet With]
They also adopted it after FBI agents alleged pay-to-play politics were involved in the now canned Angel Stadium land sale noting that former Mayor Harry Sidhu tried to get a $1 million in campaign support from the ball club to ram the deal through.
Sidhu pleaded guilty to corruption charges in 2023, including lying to federal investigators about trying to get campaign support from the stadium deal.
His plea agreement describes how Sidhu and allied council members prepped for public debates on the public land deal, holding “mock” council meetings to rehearse deliberations over the sale with two unnamed council members and the team’s president.
Both the FBI in sworn affidavits and the independent investigators in their corruption probe report also detailed a secret retreat hosted by the chamber of commerce in 2020 that included several city officials including City Manager Vanderpool.
[Read: Inside The Shadowy Anaheim Chamber of Commerce Retreat Called Out By the FBI]
On the agenda, according to investigators:
How to withhold tens of millions of tax revenue dollars out of the city’s discretionary pot of money once the city pays off its resort bonds.
Editor’s note: Ashleigh Aitken’s father, Wylie Aitken, chairs Voice of OC’s board of directors.
Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @ElattarHosam.
•••
Can you support Voice of OC with a donation?
You obviously care about local news and value good journalism here in Orange County. With your support, we can bring you more stories like these.
Related
[ad_2]
Source link
