Anaheim officials – a majority of whom had their election campaigns heavily backed by Disneyland Resort interests – are expected to approve Disney’s proposed theme park expansion, despite concerns of a rushed process.
City council members are expected to vote on the project at their Tuesday 5 p.m. meeting.
Click here to watch the meeting.
The expected decision comes as a host of residents raise numerous concerns over the sale of Magic Way and other streets, the appraisal of those streets, an economic impact report the city never fully received, pollution and a lack of transparency over the process.
They also say the whole thing is rushed.
[Read: Is Anaheim Rushing the Approval of Disneyland’s Expansion?]
In the wake of FBI agents and independent investigators alleging Disneyland resort interests hold outsized influence on city hall and policy making, residents are asking officials to do their due diligence on the project and hold off for now.
Stephanie Mercadante, a lifelong Anaheim resident who lives near Disneyland, said as she walked her neighborhood to inform people about the project and the impacts it could have, many people noted Disney’s influence on city council members and staff.
“When I walked a lot, people were saying ‘oh good luck on this, Disney owns Anaheim. Why try to fight Disney?’” she said. “It is true, but this is the line that we have to cross real hard in the sand today and say this is going to stop.”
Mercadante said the project – dubbed Disneyland Forward – can have big impacts on the quality of nearby residents like her, including traffic congestion, noise and air pollution.
Disneyland representatives and city staff say the project comes with community benefits like $30 million for housing and $8 million for parks, generates more tax revenue for public services like police and won’t increase the theme park’s footprint.
If approved, the entertainment juggernaut is supposed to invest close to $2 billion in the resort district over the next decade.
“With continued investment, we can make an even larger impact in our communities, enhance area growth, and help address some of Anaheim’s most difficult challenges,” reads the Disneyland Forward website.
Almost all the city council members did not respond to requests for comment last week.
Councilwoman Norma Campos Kurtz – who was appointed to her seat and has ties to Disney’s chief political spending vehicle, Support Our Anaheim Resort – said she wasn’t ready to answer a reporter’s questions on the matter Wednesday, six days ahead of the expected vote.
Recently, SOAR spent over $546,000 on Councilwoman Natalie Meeks 2022 campaign and over $380,000 on Councilwoman Natalie Rubalcava 2022 campaign.
In 2020, the PAC spent over $430,000 on Councilman Stephen Faessel’s campaign and over $160,000 on Councilman Jose Diaz’s campaign, according to city campaign finance disclosures.
Residents’ Growing Concerns
Meanwhile, some residents are asking questions about a study conducted by Cal State Fullerton’s Wood Center on the economic impact the project could have on the city.
It’s a study that Disneyland representatives have used to tout the benefits of the project on their website, saying the project will bring $30 million in new annual revenue to the city for police, fire and transportation improvements.
But city officials never received the full study, only a 9-page executive summary.
City spokesman Mike Lyster said in an interview that the summary is enough for city officials to make their decision and it was “self-evident” the project would have a significant economic impact on the city.
“That is sufficient for us because we have 20 years of experience of looking at Disney expansion driving new revenue,” he said.
Residents like Mercadante and others say they haven’t been able to look at the study themselves.
“They’re hiding it,” Mercadante said. “We want to see the projection so we can understand it and to verify it.”
Suzi Brown, Disneyland Resort’s vice president of communications, said in a Thursday email that the full analysis has competitive and proprietary information.
“It is important to note that the study is one data point in determining the benefits when we invest. We have a 70-year track record of positive economic benefits in terms of revenue to the City, and we see a direct correlation between our investment and increases in City revenues, as illustrated by this graph on the City’s website,” she wrote
Nearly all of Disney’s taxes – including its hotel taxes – go to pay down the $510 million in bonds from the 1996 theme park expansion agreement, and 20% of citywide hotel taxes go to pay down the debt.
According to the current city budget, the resort generates $289 million taxes and $150 million goes back into the resort for public safety, infrastructure costs – including $124 million to pay down resort bonds.
After factoring in bond repayments, the resort area generates $139 million in general fund revenue.
Do Benefits Outweigh Impacts?
Officials on Tuesday will be voting on a statement saying that benefits of the expansion project outweigh the negative impacts it will have.
Anaheim resident Carolina Mendez, an organizer with Mijente, said the lack of transparency on the CSUF study and the fact that officials are not raising questions about it is alarming.
“Without transparency, there’s no real room for accountability,” she said in an interview.
“It’s a red flag about where their allegiance truly rests because it’s not with the citizens of Anaheim. It’s with these corporations that fast track these rapid developments without taking into consideration how it impacts the community long term.”
If council members approve the expansion agreement, future developments on Disneyland property wouldn’t be subject to the city’s typical planning process and would instead go through an administrative review by city staff.
That means no public meetings and debates from city council members and planning commissioners on future projects at Disneyland.
“Administrative review is still a very thorough process,” Lyster said. “Many developers will tell you it’s not necessarily an easy process.”
Brown said Disney will submit an annual compliance report to the council to provide oversight.
“The City has spent the last two years developing detailed design and development guidelines, mitigation measures, limitations, and regulations that must be followed for any future development,” Brown said.
Anaheim resident Cynthia Ward, a former council aide and longtime activist, lambasted the administrative review proposal.
“The city staff that just shoved this through the meat grinder now gets to approve things outside of public view. If it’s this bad while we’re watching, what’s going to happen in somebody’s office who just has to stamp a piece of paper without accountability,” she said.
Residents are also worried about what the sale of three public streets will have on traffic congestion and are particularly pushing back on the privatization of Magic Way – a road they say is used to cut through traffic and get to the 5 freeway.
[Read: Anaheim Moves to Sell Public Streets to Disney, Residents Question Move]
Disney representatives argue that 99% of the commuters on Magic Way are using it to get to the amusement park – pointing to a commissioned traffic count they did during an atmospheric storm.
Mercadante has circulated a hardcopy petition against the sale that has close to 400 signatures that she says are from people living near Disneyland.
She’s also circulating an online petition she created, netting 500 signatures as of Friday morning.
If approved, Disneyland would buy the streets for $40 million dollars – based on an appraisal the company commissioned.
Residents like Marisol Ramirez, deputy director of Orange County Communities Organized for Responsible Development, question why the city didn’t do their own appraisal.
“The city should also be doing their own independent things to ensure that they’re valuing what they’re bidding accurately. That money would go back to the city, that would go back to city services, and it would go back to our funds, and they’re not willing to really do the work, she said in an interview.
Lyster said the city had the appraisal peer reviewed by Thompson & Thompson, who concluded that it meets professional standards.
“We were comfortable with it,” he said.
Brown said the process was standard city practice.
Ramirez, along with Jeanine Robbins, a resident and activist, and Duane Roberts, who runs a local blog, also said Disney could be doing more to help create affordable housing as part of the project.
All three said they’d like to see a gate tax or entertainment fee implemented on Disney, the Honda Center, Angel Stadium and the convention center to bring in more money for housing.
“$2 dollars a person is not going to discourage anybody from coming,” Robbins said. “It could benefit the city immensely.
Lyster and Brown say the $30 million for homes would be the largest investment towards housing in the city’s history and could be leveraged to get more money.
Brown said the best way for the city to generate revenue is to invest in the Disneyland Resort.
“The last seven decades prove that when Disney invests in theme park experiences, jobs and revenue are created that the City can count on to fund vital resident services,” she wrote.
Lyster said the city is not currently considering a gate tax.
“We’d have to look at a gate tax on quite a few venues and so it starts getting more complicated than just saying tax visitors to Disney,” he said. “We’re looking at other ways to see if we might be able to get a recurring revenue stream.”
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.
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