Latest news with #AnaheimCityCouncil
Los Angeles Times
27-03-2025
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
Anaheim backs state bill on Middle Eastern and North African data inclusion
The Anaheim City Council lent its full support to a legislative effort to properly categorize Middle Eastern and North African people when government agencies collect demographic data. Introduced by Democratic Assemblyman John Harabedian, whose 41st Assembly District encompasses Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties, the MENA Inclusion Act would require state and local agencies to include separate categories for major Middle Eastern and North African groups for reports published in 2027 and after. Anaheim Councilman Carlos Leon, whose district includes the officially designated Little Arabia enclave, requested a discussion and vote on a resolution supporting the bill, also known as Assembly Bill 91, during the March 25 council meeting. 'For too long, Middle Eastern and North African communities have been statistically invisible in demographic data, grouped under categories that fail to reflect their distinct cultural and socio-economic experiences,' Leon said. The proposed resolution stated that Anaheim is home to more than 20,000 people who identify as Middle Eastern and North African. Leon pointed to Little Arabia, which was designated in 2022 and now has freeway signs, in stating that Anaheim has set the standard for recognition. 'It is time for California to follow suit,' he added. According to U.S. Census Bureau estimates in 2020, the state is home to an estimated 740,000 people who identify as Middle Eastern and North African, the largest such population in the nation. For years, those communities have been grouped as 'white' on census and other forms, which has prompted efforts to more accurately collect critical demographic data. But a push to pass the bill last year died when budgetary concerns led to its suspension. The greater Los Angeles area chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which is headquartered in Anaheim, applauded the bill's revival this year. 'For too long, the Middle Eastern North African community in California has been underrepresented and deprived of resources due to a lack of accurate data collection,' Basha Jamil, CAIR-LA's policy manager, said in a statement. 'As the largest civil rights organization representing American Muslims and over 1 million California Muslims, CAIR-CA has firsthand seen the effects of this issue on the community across all spheres of life — be it in schools, social services, or courtrooms.' CAIR is one of several organizations advocating for the bill's passage as part of a MENA civil rights coalition that includes locally-based groups like the Arab American Civic Council and Access California Services. The bill's passage could have local impacts for Little Arabia. 'It opens doors to small business loans, technical assistance and equitable development planning,' Amin Nash, policy and advocacy coordinator with the Arab American Civic Council, told council members. Mayor Ashleigh Aitken and Leon sent individual letters of support for the bill. Council members made one small revision to their own resolution to read that Anaheim will 'recognize,' as opposed to 'support,' the culture and contributions of its own MENA community. With that amendment, the council unanimously approved the resolution backing the MENA Inclusion Act, which will be shared with Anaheim's state representatives, including state Sen. Tom Umberg, who is one of the bill's co-sponsors.
Los Angeles Times
05-02-2025
- Business
- Los Angeles Times
2 O.C. cities expand efforts to curb street vendors operating outside the law
Good morning. It's Wednesday, Feb. 5, and rain is in the forecast for the next couple of days. So, if you still own an umbrella it might actually be of use to you this week. I'm Carol Cormaci, bringing you this week's TimesOC newsletter with a look at some of the latest local news and events. Anaheim and Buena Park, both homes to renowned attractions that bring in a whole lot of visitors, also draw in a host of street vendors, some permitted, others not. Up and down California, including other O.C. cities where such vendors set up shop, officials have wrestled with how best to deal with them since the California Street Vending Act (Senate Bill 946) decriminalizing the practice was signed into law by then-Gov. Jerry Brown in 2018. To gain more control over the fruit carts and taco stands that appear on its sidewalks, the Buena Park City Council last week voted to give code enforcement officers the ability to seize illicit street food vending equipment 'if a vendor appears to have abandoned it or if it poses an imminent safety or environmental hazard,' according to this TimesOC story. Further, the city can impose a $265 impound fee to the operators involved. The change in city law will give Buena Park code enforcement 'the power to confiscate tents, tables and grilling equipment for 90 days, while also dumping food,' the article states. 'We've kind of hit our limits,' Councilman Connor Traut, a proponent of the measure, said during last week's meeting. 'We need this extra stick. It's a necessary step and I think we should still work towards encouraging legal street vending and amending rules, because the demand is there for folks in our community.' In what may have been sheer coincidence, the Anaheim City Council at the same time approved two $250,000 contracts for consultants to assist its code officers with cracking down on the vendors that set up their small enterprises on sidewalks without required permits. 'Neither [consulting firm] is being hired just for street vending,' Mike Lyster, a city spokesman, told TimesOC. 'We've actually had tremendous success with street vending enforcement on our own. We still have issues at the stadium, at Honda Center and along Harbor Boulevard. These contracts will give us more flexibility.' • Students for Justice in Palestine, the group that organized a pro-Gaza encampment at Chapman University, was recognized Jan. 21 during the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Awards hosted by the university's Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. The very next day, the recognition was strongly criticized in an email sent out by the president of Chapman, Daniele Struppa, with an apology to Jewish students and others who might have been offended by it. The award was subsequently rescinded. • An experimental amateur-built small plane that crashed into a warehouse near Fullerton Airport Jan. 2 had defects in a door that appears to have contributed to the collision, the National Transportation Safety Board said in a preliminary report. The accident took the lives of the pilot, Pascal Reid of Huntington Beach, and his 16-year-old daughter, Kelly, sparked a fire and led to eight serious and 11 minor injuries. • After a portion of the private walkway that snakes along a cliff in Laguna Beach collapsed in a landslide Friday morning, sending about 500 cubic yards of earth down on 1,000 Steps Beach and damaging a path there, city officials reported. No injuries occurred during the 7:15 a.m. 'significant bluff collapse,' they said. • Officials with South Coast Repertory are assessing damages and any losses to its production building in Santa Ana caused by a partial roof collapse during a period of high winds and rain on Jan. 26. The roughly 4,500-square-foot area that comprised the paint shop has been red-tagged by building inspectors. • A man suspected of killing a woman in Menifee Saturday morning was shot to death about three hours later at the Newport Beach Pier fallowing a pursuit by Santa Ana police officers. • A Los Angeles police sergeant was arrested Saturday night after authorities say he hit and killed a pedestrian in Tustin while driving intoxicated and fled the scene. Tustin police identified the driver as Carlos Coronel. • Jurors began hearing opening statements last week in the case against Antonio Padilla, who faces one count of murder in connection with the death of 60-year-old Gina Marie Lockhart, whose body was unearthed by detectives in the yard of his parents' mobile home in Huntington Beach on July 17, 2022. • Investigation into a citizen's complaint culminated last week when Laguna Beach police seized several illegal substances and made multiple arrests of people alleged to have been involved in the sale of illegal drugs at Cinder Box Smoke Shop on South Coast Highway. • Newport Beach police announced this week the arrest Friday night of a 30-year-old Chilean national in connection with a residential burglary near East Coast Highway and Pelican Point. • Twice-convicted drunk driver Serene Francie Rosenberg, 48, has been charged with the murder of 88-year-old Melvin Joseph Weibel after allegedly plowing her Land Rover SUV into the transit van he was a passenger in. The crash took place at around 6:15 p.m. Friday at the intersection of Stonehill Drive and Golden Lantern in Dana Point, according to the reporting of City News Service. • Angels outfielder Mickey Moniak was awarded a raise to $2 million Friday instead of the team's offer of $1.5 million in salary arbitration. Moniak hit .219 with 14 homers and a career-high 49 RBIs last year. • The new Huntington Beach Sports Hall of Fame inducted its first class on Sunday. It included, among other honorees, members of the 2011 Ocean View Little League team that won the Little League World Series back in 2011. You can find the complete list of the inaugural class here. • The Newport Harbor High surf team captured the Sunset League All-Star Championships last Wednesday. The Sailors finished with 192 points, edging powerhouse Huntington Beach, which scored 185 points. • Laguna Beach High School's girls' basketball team won the Pacific Hills League crown by beating Irvine, 53-31. The CIF Southern Section will release its playoff pairings on Feb. 8. • More than 18,000 entrants turned out Sunday for the Surf City Marathon in Huntington Beach. Antoine Puglisi of Los Angeles was the men's champion and Temucula's Stephanie Cullingford was the women's champion. Registration is already open for the 30th annual Surf City Marathon, set for Feb. 1, 2026, at Beach. • There's a new art exhibit at the Great Park Gallery in Irvine, themed 'More Than You Can Chew.' One of the 17 artist installations featured is from Seattle-based artist Eriko Kobayashi and is called 'Sunny Side Up.' The gallery's address is 270 Corsair. The exhibit runs through April 20. • Peter Quilter's play 'End of the Rainbow' will be on stage at the Gem Theatre, 12852 Main St., Garden Grove beginning Friday night and running through Sunday, Feb. 23. Curtain time on Fridays and Saturdays is 8 p.m., Sundays at 2 p.m. The play with music delves into the final chapter of Judy Garland's life. • 'Echoes of Conflict: Remembering Vietnam,' a comprehensive exhibit of items related to the Vietnam War, opens Saturday, Feb. 15, in Heroes Hall Museum at the O.C. Fair & Event Center, 88 Fair Drive, Costa Mesa. The exhibit features items such as uniforms, weaponry, photographs and letters. On display through Dec. 21; admission and parking are free. Until next Wednesday,Carol I appreciate your help in making this the best newsletter it can be. Please send news tips, your memory of life in O.C. (photos welcome!) or comments to
Yahoo
30-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Column: Orange County once was an anti-immigrant hotbed. What changed?
For decades, I could count on my native Orange County to act against immigrants, legal and not, as regularly as the swallows returned to Capistrano. It was like a civic version of the Broadway classic 'Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better),' except not as clever and with more xenophobia. Cue the lowlight reel! In a 1986 article in Time magazine, Newport Beach resident Harold Ezell, then director of the Immigration and Naturalization Service's Western region, criticized immigrants who use fraudulent papers. 'If you catch 'em, you ought to clean 'em and fry 'em yourself," he said. Republicans illegally posted uniformed security guards outside voting booths in Santa Ana in 1988 with signs stating noncitizens couldn't vote. A group of residents — including Ezell — drafted Proposition 187, the 1994 California ballot measure that sought to make life miserable for "illegal aliens" and their children. After downing margaritas at El Torito, they named the initiative 'Save Our State." In 1996, the Anaheim City Council allowed immigration authorities to screen the legal status of detainees in the city jail — the first program of its kind in California. Three years later, Anaheim Union High School District trustees passed a resolution to sue Mexico for $50 million for the cost of educating people like me, who were the children of unauthorized immigrants. Long before it became a GOP tradition, local Republican candidates and politicians took trips to the border to boast about how tough they were on the 'invasion.' In 2005, Mission Viejo grandfather Jim Gilchrist created the Minuteman Project, which enlisted suburbanites to help the Border Patrol find migrants who illegally crossed into this country. That same year, Costa Mesa Mayor Allan Mansoor tried to get police officers to enforce federal immigration laws, which would have been a first in the nation. Read more: O.C. can you say ... 'anti-Mexican'? From theorizing about how to repeal birthright citizenship to suing California over its "sanctuary" state law and allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement to hold detainees in city and county jails, Orange County has shown the rest of the country how to be as punitive as possible toward the undocumented. With Donald Trump in the White House again, this Know Nothing legacy has its most powerful acolyte ever. If you're against mass deportations and want to see some sort of amnesty, it's easy to feel deflated and even easier to curse Orange County for its past. I've been doing the latter for nearly all of my adult life — first as a college activist, then as a columnist. It's a subject I wish I could leave but — to paraphrase Michael Corleone — it keeps pulling me back in. Because I've covered Orange County for a quarter-century, though, I haven't lost all hope. I know the result of O.C.'s scorched-earth campaigns against illegal immigration: initially shoving the national conversation rightward, but eventually, repeatedly, becoming the political equivalent of an exploding cigar. Though Proposition 187 passed, it famously made my generation of California Latinos vote Democratic for decades and permanently kneecapped the O.C. GOP. The local anger over the ballot initiative led to Loretta Sanchez's historic 1996 win over incumbent Rep. Bob Dornan, as she became the first O.C. Latino elected to Congress. Her victory was so stunning that a House subcommittee investigated Dornan's claims that immigrants illegally voted in the election and swung it for Sanchez (they didn't). The Minuteman Project? It quickly fizzled out. John Eastman, the former dean of Chapman's law school who sparked Trump's interest in banning birthright citizenship with a cockamamie 2020 article claiming Kamala Harris wasn't a 'natural born citizen'? He faces disbarment for pushing Trump's unfounded claims that Joe Biden stole the 2020 election. Costa Mesa? It now has a progressive, Latino-majority City Council that has loudly distanced itself from Mansoor's actions. As the years went on, trashing immigrants for political gain in Orange County just wasn't as popular or effective as before. Trump, despite his noxious rhetoric over three presidential campaigns, never won the county. A UC Irvine School of Social Ecology poll released this month showed that 28% of O.C. residents thought immigration was a 'top problem' locally — compare that with a 1993 Times poll putting that number at 80%. Meanwhile, the UC Irvine poll found that 58% of people in O.C. favored some type of legal status for immigrants who have none, while 35% preferred deportation. This ain't John Wayne's Orange County anymore. Hell, it's not mine. What changed? Demographics, for one. In 1990, as anger against illegal immigration was beginning to rage in Southern California, whites were 65% of the county. Fourteen years later, U.S. census figures showed they had become a minority in O.C. The latest stats put whites at just 37%. Nearly a third of residents are foreign-born, with immigrants living all across the county and occupying all rungs of the social ladder. It's harder to trash them when they're your neighbors, your children's friends, your in-laws or your co-workers, you know? Those changing demographics also led to the political purpling of the county. Few O.C. politicians outside of Huntington Beach's MAGA City Council have publicly praised Trump's promises to clamp down on immigration. Even O.C. Sheriff Don Barnes — who's about as liberal as a Winchester rifle and who has drastically increased the number of jail inmates his department turned over to immigration authorities — put out a news release this week asserting that his deputies "remain focused on the enforcement of state and local laws," rather than joining Trump's deportation posse. Most of all, it's the activists who have had enough of the old Orange County. There's always been pushback against anti-immigrant lunacy here. When I was a sophomore at Anaheim High, thousands of high school students walked out of class to protest Proposition 187. In 2006, there was a huge rally in Santa Ana — along with other marches in the rest of the country — to protest a congressional bill that would have made Proposition 187 seem as friendly as President Reagan's amnesty. But most of those efforts were haphazard, devolved into infighting among Chicanosauruses and didn't develop into a full-fledged movement. Read more: In Orange County, land of reinvention, even its conservative politics is changing Over the last 15 years, activists who grew up here — and not just Latinos — have organized rallies, staged sit-ins and formed nonprofits or community-based groups that coalesced into a multifront network standing up for people without papers. They campaigned to kick ICE out of local jails, aided various lawsuits seeking to change local policies and even helped pro-immigrant candidates populate school boards and city councils. If such a loud, successful resistance can happen in Orange County, it can happen anywhere. It's not easy, but it's possible — nay, necessary. One of the people fighting the good fight is Santa Ana native Sandra De Anda. She's a network coordinator for Orange County Rapid Response Network, which connects immigrants to legal help and runs a hotline to report ICE sightings. The 31-year-old grew up on Minnie Street in a historically Cambodian and Latino neighborhood where migra detained residents 'all the time." When she returned to her hometown from Portland, Ore., in 2017, De Anda began to volunteer for pro-immigrant groups 'and never looked back.' She's proud of how far Orange County has come and is more committed than ever to her cause. Friends and family worry for her safety, but De Anda remains undeterred. 'There's such a nasty conservative tradition here, but our folks have still been here just as long,' she told me in a matter-of-fact tone after a long day of work. 'We deserve to stay here. We're going to have to fight together through any means necessary for the next four years." Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
29-01-2025
- Business
- Los Angeles Times
2 Orange County cities beef up street food enforcement
Two Orange County cities took additional measures to strengthen enforcement efforts against street food vendors. On Tuesday, the Buena Park City Council voted to give code enforcement officers the ability to impound street food vending equipment. The vote came at the same time that the Anaheim City Council approved two $250,000 contracts for third-party consultants that will, in a small part, assist its code officers with cracking down on taco stands, fruit carts and other vendors that set up on sidewalks without required permits. Buena Park originally took limited measures in 2021 to ban street food vending in areas around Knott's Berry Farm and the city's auto center, two years after the California Safe Sidewalk Vending Act became state law. But a pair of study sessions last year claimed that street food vendors continued to set up on sidewalks throughout the city — and that flies and maggots were even found in the meat of one street taco stand. Former City Councilman Jose Trinidad Castañeda balked at the notion while wanting to keep the 2021 laws in place. 'You're not seeing maggots on all the tacos from every street vendor in the city,' he said during the Feb. 27 meeting. 'Let's be a little bit real here.' A majority of council members, though, directed city staff to explore granting code enforcement with impounding authority, which came back on Tuesday for discussion. Matt Foulkes, the city's community and economic development director, noted that one part-time code officer is currently tasked with street vending enforcement. Orange County Health Care Agency officers, who have impound authorities, have teamed with Buena Park for enforcement efforts but have been limited to one to three actions per month, according to the city. A change in city law will give code enforcement the power to confiscate tents, tables and grilling equipment for 90 days, while also dumping food. The approach takes a page out of Anaheim's playbook. 'What Anaheim was experiencing was very similar to us, but of course, on a larger scale,' Foulkes said. 'This is a tool in our toolbox,' he later added. 'But in cases where we have repeated offenders … this impoundment would allow us to, ultimately, take their equipment, which we have found to be the most effective method.' City staff estimated that up to as many as a dozen street vendors operate in Buena Park on any given weekday. During Halloween Haunt season at Knott's Berry Farm, that number balloons up to 40. 'I would like to see somewhat of a pathway for these people to conduct business legally,' Councilman Carlos Franco said. 'In addition, if there was no demand for it, then they wouldn't be here.' Council members approved the changes to the law in a 4-1 vote, with Franco being the lone vote against it. A second, unanimous vote set the impound fees at $265. Under the amended law, code enforcement can directly impound equipment if a street vendor appears to have abandoned it or if it poses an imminent safety or environmental hazard. In most cases, a code officer will approach vendors and allow them to pack up their equipment within 30 minutes or risk impoundment. Code officers will begin notifying street food vendors of the changes 30 days before they take effect. Councilman Connor Traut voted in favor of the beefed up measures. 'We've kind of hit our limits,' he said. 'We need this extra stick. It's a necessary step and I think we should still work towards encouraging legal street vending and amending rules, because the demand is there for folks in our community.' It's a strategy that Anaheim added to on Tuesday when it contracted with two private companies for supplemental staff to help with an array of code enforcement tasks. Before Anaheim, 4Leaf Inc. gained a $600,000 contract with Fontana to assist code officers with street vendor crackdowns. Where it concerns street food vending, 4Leaf's contract in Anaheim allows it to provide up to 15 staffers for enforcement efforts at large sporting events at Angel Stadium, Honda Center and the Anaheim Resort around Disneyland. More staffers could be made available if multiple events occur on the same day. The hiring of support staff comes after Angels Baseball President John Carpino railed against hot dog vendors setting up outside of Angel Stadium last season. Carpino sounded the alarm about a guest getting 'severely sick or even dying due to food poisoning' in an April email to city officials. By June, Anaheim solicited bids for code enforcement support staff. As an independent contractor, 4Leaf workers will have the same ability to 'seize, transport and book' vendor equipment as city code officers. The terms and services offered by the Willdan Engineering contract are the same. 'Neither is being hired just for street vending,' Mike Lyster, a city spokesman, added. 'We've actually had tremendous success with street vending enforcement on our own. We still have issues at the stadium, at Honda Center and along Harbor Boulevard. These contracts will give us more flexibility.' Former Anaheim Mayor Curt Pringle lobbied city officials in December 2023 on Willdan's behalf, according to Anaheim's lobbyist registry.
