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Anaheim Mayor Looks Unopposed
An endorsement by Curt Pringle's chief critic paves the way for an easy reelection.

By Dave McKibben, Times Staff Writer

July 26, 2006

Anaheim Mayor Curt Pringle, one of Orange County's few big-city mayors, has won the endorsement of his chief critic, and it appears he will run unopposed for reelection in November.

"He's done a great job for the city, and he deserves another four years," said Anaheim Councilman Harry Sidhu, who has sparred with Pringle. "Even though we might have our differences on a few of the issues, they are not significant enough for me not to endorse a man with a great vision for our city."
The smart money suggested that Pringle would have a fight on his hands this fall after Anaheim lost its name-game lawsuit with the Angels, costing the state's 10th-largest city some $4 million and alienating the team's popular owner. And an effort to land an NFL team drew skepticism from Sidhu, who thought the city was offering the league land for a stadium at half its value.

But Pringle's critics never got much traction on either issue. Even Pringle's opponents believed that in renaming the team the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, Angels owner Arte Moreno had backed the mayor into a corner. Many residents of Anaheim - home to Disneyland, a huge convention center, an emerging downtown and professional baseball and hockey teams - applauded Pringle for fighting the name change. The NFL land deal has remained in the background, largely because the league has yet to choose between the Los Angeles Coliseum and vacant land next to Angel Stadium.

Sidhu has tangled with Pringle on a few other occasions. Sidhu was the lone council member who didn't support Pringle's decision to appeal the verdict over the Angels' name, and he disagreed with the mayor's move to put a permanent gambling ban on the November ballot.

Because of Sidhu's policy differences with Pringle and his wealth, most insiders figured he was the only politician who could give the mayor some competition. Sidhu, 49, once owned 28 fast-food restaurants and spent more than $200,000 of his own money on his last council race.

"Now that Harry has endorsed the mayor, I think he will run unopposed," said Anaheim Councilman Bob Hernandez, also a frequent Pringle critic. "It's unfortunate, because I think the political process works a lot better when people have choices. I think a challenge would be better for Curt too. It keeps you on your game."

But Hernandez acknowledged that Pringle, a former Assembly speaker with a war chest of some $500,000, is virtually unbeatable. Pringle, a conservative Republican, has worked closely with Democratic council colleagues Richard Chavez and Lorri Galloway and Latino leaders to create more low-cost housing and recreational opportunities in the city's poorer districts.

Amin David, who heads Los Amigos of Orange County, a Latino advocacy group, said he was happy to hear Pringle would probably run unopposed. "We certainly don't want to lose him," David said. "We're very pleased with him. He listens to a lot of the ideas set forth by the progressives on council, Lorri and Richard. He cares about doing something different and decent for the working class. That's very inclusive thinking."

Sidhu, also a conservative Republican, said he briefly considered entering the race. But he realized a month ago he didn't have enough support to defeat Pringle, who won handily in 2002 over three challengers. "His polling numbers are better than mine," Sidhu said. "But I didn't base this solely on polling. The timing was not right. I will have a chance in my lifetime to be the mayor of the city."

Pringle said he was pleased to receive Sidhu's endorsement Monday.

"Harry told me some time ago that he wouldn't run against me, but I know there was some talk out there," Pringle said Tuesday after a ceremony launching the city's 150th anniversary celebration. "It's nice to have a strong coalition of support from my colleagues. It makes it a lot easier to move the city forward."

Anaheim Mayor Curt Pringle’s re-election campaign for a second term as Mayor is just starting to gear up, but has already received the endorsement of most of his City Council colleagues as well as the Anaheim Police Officers Association (APOA) and the Anaheim Firefighters Association (AFA).

Along with the associations representing Anaheim’s public safety personnel, Mayor Pro Tem Richard Chavez, City Councilman Harry Sidhu, and City Councilwoman Lori Galloway have endorsed Pringle’s campaign.

“Although we don’t approach every issue from the same perspective,” Mayor Pro Tem Chavez, “there is no doubt that Curt has a passion for Anaheim.  You know that he is motivated by what is best for our community.”

“Curt and I share some very important goals, including keeping taxes low and protecting private property rights,” said Councilman Sidhu.  “I look forward to working with him in his second term.”

“Anaheim is in the middle of a Golden Age, and Mayor Curt Pringle is the visionary driving our progress,” said Councilwoman Galloway.  “I am as proud to call him my friend as I am to call him my Mayor.”

Joining his council colleagues, the APOA and AFA cited Mayor Pringle’s efforts to keep Anaheim one of the safest large cities in America.

Government Technology magazine published this story today on the City of Anaheim's new service allowing anyone to watch Anaheim City Council meetings live online:

Beginning tomorrow, Anaheim residents can view City Council meetings from the comfort of their own home or anywhere they have access to the internet. Working with San Francisco-based Granicus, streaming video of Anaheim City Council meetings now will be available from the city's Web site.

"As I proposed at my State of the City speech earlier this year," said Anaheim Mayor Curt Pringle, "at every opportunity we are moving closer to creating 21st Century City Hall, where City Hall is open for business 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, whether you come downtown, or sit in a city park accessing the citywide wireless network on your laptop. With Granicus and our new EarthLink wireless network, Anaheim residents can now watch decisions being made that affect their daily lives from anywhere in the city."

Regularly-scheduled Anaheim City Council meetings will be aired live on Tuesday evenings at approximately 5 p.m. Each meeting then will be posted online along with an accompanying Council agenda about two hours after the conclusion of each meeting. Past meetings will be archived and searchable so that people can locate a specific item of interest and watch that item being addressed by the City Council.

The city's cable channel, ACTV-3, will continue to air the most recent City Council meetings for those who prefer a more traditional viewing format.

Steven Titch, telecom policy analysts for the Reason Foundation, wrote this op-ed featured in today's Orange Countty Register. Titch pens a compelling argument for vidoe franchising reform that benefits consumers by ending the cable companyies monopoly on the delivery of video entertainment. The Ciyt of Anaheim -- in contrast to virtually every other local government in the United STates -- is a leader in ending the cable monopoly and its accompanying franchise fee and allowing other companies to compete for consumers' business.

Here's is the Titch article:

Cable competition offers more for less

Legislature should end monopolistic alliance of cities, cable TV companies

By STEVE TITCH

Rising cable television bills have been straining household budgets and driving consumers crazy. But cable customers might finally catch a break as California pushes forward on legislation to reform our antiquated system of video franchising – the revenue-sharing agreements that cable companies sign with local governments in return for the right to offer video services to taxpayers on an exclusive basis.

Remember rotary phones and television sets with tuning knobs? Remember when personal computers did not exist? That's the era in which the current franchising system was created. Local governments wrote exclusive agreements with cable and phone companies for the purpose of "protecting consumers," i.e., regulating what was then a monopoly service. At the time, there was no competition with, or between, phone and cable service providers.

But today competition is booming among a variety of rapidly evolving technologies including cable TV, cell phones, satellite TV, Internet telephone, Internet TV and others.

So now, instead of protecting consumers, the old laws are actually shielding large companies from emerging competition and are preventing consumers from taking advantage of better services and lower prices.

You can read the entire article here.

Last week, I had the honor of cutting the “ribbon” (it was actually a wire) inaugurating the first phase of the citywide WiFi network built and operated by Earthlink. Within six square miles centered on Anaheim’s downtown, hi-speed wireless Internet access will be available for a $22 monthly subscription fee (you can view a map of the initial coverage area at http://www.earthlink.net/about/muni/maps/anaheim/). The network is scheduled to expand to 10-square miles by the end of July and cover all 50-square miles of Anaheim by the end of 2006.

This is an impressive accomplishment and a testament to the speed with which private sector provides public goods when unburdened by government interference. The Anaheim City Council voted last October to sign an agreement with Earthlink for the building of a citywide WiFi network. Eight months later the first phase is already operational.

More importantly, this is not a city-owned enterprise undertaken to gratify government egos and provide a trendy “free” service using taxpayer dollars. Earthlink is using existing city infrastructure to build their WiFi network. The company pays the city for the electricity to power the system, a lease payment for the municipal fiber connections used, and a fee for attaching their wireless equipment to city streetlights and traffic signals. Earthlink will also provide the city with access to the new network at a discounted rate – enabling us to create a back-up for the city’s emergency wireless network at a lower cost.

Furthermore, Earthlink performs a wholesale role that enables other ISPs to sell WiFi access on a retail basis. In other words, Earthlink will not have a city-chartered WiFi monopoly in Anaheim.

July is a month when American celebrate our independence and remember to “let freedom ring.” In a small way, the inauguration of Anaheim’s citywide WiFi network does exactly that, and shows how local government, via open-mindedness and a simple willingness to stay on the sidelines, can let freedom ring a little bit louder.

--Curt