Thursday, May 19, 2022

The LA Times has more details about the corruption investigation into the alleged "cabal" controlling Anaheim politics

LAT:

On one intercepted call, [one politician] and the political consultant discussed whether a council member identified in the affidavit as “Elected Official 7" could stomach joining the cabal. 

...

“I think this would be a lot for him to absorb in his first week [as an elected member of the Anaheim City Council],” [the politician] said. “It’s kind of like when S.O.A.R. took how the sausage was made to the S.O.A.R. Board to show them how polling works and how we manipulate it. That’s when half of S.O.A.R. kind of went off the deep end.”

...

Anaheim is also a city of stark divides between the business elites who have the ear of the city’s politicians, the wealthy residents who live in a heavily white and affluent neighborhood known as Anaheim Hills, and the city’s flatlands, where the city’s more working-class Latino population resides.

...

Much of the recent turmoil revolves around Angel Stadium. In the search warrant affidavit, [the FBI agent] alleged that [the Anaheim mayor] provided confidential information to the Angels on at least two occasions during the city’s negotiations with the team over the 150-acre stadium property and obstructed an Orange County Grand Jury investigation into the deal. The mayor, [the agent] wrote, hoped to solicit $1 million in campaign contributions from the Angels in exchange for his help.