Four days after Anaheim Mayor Ashleigh Aitken invited Angels owner Arte Moreno to join her in “an open and honest conversation about the future of baseball in Anaheim,” two members of the Anaheim City Council urged a different approach.
Councilwoman Natalie Meeks said during Tuesday’s council meeting that she was “disappointed” in Aitken’s open letter, saying its outline of Angel Stadium “deal points” reflected a “go-it-alone approach” that had served the city poorly in the last round of stadium negotiations.
“It must be done with thoughtful collaboration,” Meeks said, by engaging the rest of the council and the public as well.
Councilwoman Natalie Rubalcava asked that the council schedule a discussion about whether the city should negotiate with the Angels and, if so, what its next steps and strategic plan should be.
Amid criticism from state legislators and former city councilmembers about how the city has conducted business with the Angels over the past two decades, Rubalcava said, “I’d like to start being proactive.”
Aitken said she was acting as “spokesperson for the city” and had cleared the open letter with the city manager and city attorney. In the letter, she said, she was offering her “personal opinions.”
“I am very hesitant to ever speak for my council colleagues,” she said.
In the letter, Aitken proposed eight “starting points” for negotiations, including the return of Anaheim to the Angels name, public negotiating updates, community benefits agreements, and workshops to discuss what residents would like to see in development of the 150-acre stadium site.
The comment about a “go-it-alone approach” reflected the last round of stadium negotiations, in which then-Mayor Harry Sidhu successfully pushed to become the council’s lone representative on the city’s negotiating team.
Sidhu recently was sentenced to two months in prison after an FBI public corruption investigation, which in part revealed he had shared confidential city negotiating information with the Angels in the hope of securing a campaign contribution from them. (The investigation did not allege any wrongdoing by the team.)
In 2019, soon after taking office, Sidhu announced he had met with Moreno and the Angels had agreed to a one-year lease extension to allow time for negotiations. In the absence of a deal, that would have left the Angels with nowhere to play after 2020.
The Angels already had opted out of their lease, and they had in fact agreed to a one-year extension of the opt-out window. In exchange, and without any announcement from Sidhu, the city reinstated a lease that could extend through 2038, depriving Anaheim of its leverage when the new deal collapsed.
Earlier Tuesday, Aitken told The Times she had a brief meeting with Moreno at the Angels’ home opener — hours after the city had published her open letter to him. Moreno has not committed to restart stadium negotiations.
“We had a nice handshake on opening day,” she said. “It was pleasant. He was really positive about the letter and appreciated the fact that I made the outreach. I am hopeful, moving forward, that we can follow up on it.”
