Voice of OC (https://voiceofoc.org/tag/angels-negotiations/)
An Orange County lawsuit could soon shine some light on the secrecy surrounding the negotiations and land sale proposal of Angel Stadium, after a community group sued Anaheim for allegedly violating transparency laws.
Anaheim’s City Council members allegedly skirted state public disclosure law during the quick sale on Dec. 20 of Angel Stadium and 155 acres of public land around it. Anaheim residents have retained renown open government attorney Kelly Aviles and are demanding the city redo the process or defend it in court.
The Anaheim City Council is expected negotiate community benefits and labor agreements with the Angels this spring as part of the stadium sale process that could affect the final price tag, despite moving forward with the land sale last year.
The Anaheim City Council is moving forward with selling the Angel Stadium land, despite calls from state lawmakers and two councilmembers to postpone the process until a final price tag is hashed out.
Anaheim City Councilmembers voted late Friday to begin selling Angel Stadium, despite an unknown final price, to a company whose only known member is Angels owner Arte Moreno.
The Anaheim City Council is moving faster to begin selling the Angel Stadium land than it’s going to take to vote on naming the second Monday in October Indigenous People’s Day.
Assemblyman Tom Daly and State Senator Tom Umberg sent a letter to the Anaheim City Council Thursday, urging Councilmembers to postpone Friday’s vote to begin selling Angel Stadium to the team owner until they get more details.
The starting price tag for Angel Stadium, $325 million, could be much lower when the city finalizes agreements next spring, but a comparison to nearby land sales shows the starting price could already be low.
Despite the City Council voting on a land sale agreement in less than two weeks, some of the country’s top experts on stadium deals have more questions than answers and the city doesn’t know who the other business partners in the firm that’s buying that land are.
City of Anaheim officials have released a proposed sales agreement to sell the 153-acre Angel Stadium site and the surrounding land around it to a freshly-minted, shadowy LLC with undisclosed ownership interests that include Angels owner Arte Moreno. The sales agreement, which ties up the stadium land for future negotiations until next Spring, raises a starting price of $325 million along with a host of potential deductions for things like labor agreements, affordable housing and parks, which could significantly lower the final sales price.