There’s a fun new parlor game that everyone plays called “Who the hell is Company A?”
Officials whisper conjecture in the halls of the state capitol, ordinary people talk about it online, workers mutter hypotheses at Anaheim City Hall.
An employee of Company A, for those of you who don’t follow every burp and gurgle of the federal corruption investigation in Anaheim, attended behind-the-scenes “retreats” with people who move and shake the city, according to court documents. This self-styled “cabbalah” of Anaheim business and political leaders exerted “significant influence” over the city, bypassing the public process, federal investigators allege.
Los Angeles Times identified Disney as Company A on Tuesday night and reported that Carrie Nocella, the director of external affairs for the Disneyland Resort, was the aforementioned Company A employee.
The Registry had not independently confirmed that information, though it had certainly heard it.
We know this: One of those political leaders was reportedly former Mayor Harry Sidhu, who resigned Monday amid a chorus of outrage but has not been charged with a crime.
One of those business leaders was allegedly former Chamber of Commerce president Todd Ament, who was accused in a criminal complaint of playing a shell game with other people’s money while buying a house in Big Bear City.
And then there is the mysterious Company A, described in court documents as “an influential company located in Anaheim.” A representative from Company A was considered part of the “family” by Ament and helped draft statements for the city official to read during a city council meeting about an upcoming bond issue.
“[Company A] asked to remove the reference to [Company A’s parking lot]”, say the court documents.
Apparently complying with the wishes of Company A, the city official did not mention a parking lot during his speech. But that didn’t necessarily earn him endorsements.
“Later that night, probably during the City Council meeting, which was being broadcast live, an incoming text message from Company A Employee to Political Consultant 1 was intercepted. The text from Company A employee read: ‘[Elected Official 1] read your script so wrong. Political Consultant 1 responded, ‘Lol,’ followed by ‘He doesn’t practice,’” the federal documents say.
So who, then, could Company A possibly be? What influential company in Anaheim could be so important that it is included in retreats about city business?
“What kind of Mickey Mouse question was that, SFORZA?” a man texted this humble scribe.
Several rodent emojis posted to our social media queries about Company A. There was one of a Steamboat Willie whistling at the helm of a ship.
But several people got to work. “I think it’s Disney or Disney,” said Shelby Hogan of Anaheim. “There’s also a chance it’s Disney, and a remote chance it’s Disney, but overall I’m pretty sure Company A is Disney.”
Of course we ask Disney whether Company A was Disney and whether any Disney officials were contacted as part of the investigation. The PR people responded like this on May 18:
“We have seen press reports about the complaint and no authority has contacted us about it.”
We thanked them for responding and said we were looking forward to learning if a Disney representative attended retreats with Ament et al, and if Disney is Company A.
We asked a couple of times. crickets
Which doesn’t necessarily mean anything, of course. There might be some other influential company with a city-related parking lot in Anaheim that I’m missing. (Anaheim agreed to foot the bill for up to $200 million in infrastructure improvements when Disney built California Adventure next to Disneyland. The Mickey & Friends parking structure cost the city $108 million, electrical upgrades cost $17.6 million, and a pedestrian bridge cost $3.6 million, city officials told us when they last looked at corporate subsidies in California).
And it’s not unusual, let alone illegal, for powerful locals to meet with officials to discuss city affairs. It happens all the time, everywhere. Some might call that democracy, while others might call it the system that caters to the rich and powerful.
Still, public policy affects private outcomes, and corporations and special interests write thousands upon thousands of bills that are offered to legislators to carry out. An investigation by USA TODAY, The Arizona Republic and the Center for Public Integrity called “Copy, Paste, Legislate” documented more than 10,000 of these “model bills” circulating through state legislatures.
Nothing illegal about it; you can decide how tasty it is. And the complaints about Disney’s influence over Anaheim are as old as Disneyland itself.
How much control did this “cabal” of Anaheim businessmen have over City Hall? Is it company A from Disney? We’ll see. In the end everything will come to light. Until then, it may help to remember that delightful song from Disney’s “Mary Poppins Returns”: “A cover is not the book.”
Reference-www.ocregister.com