Angel Stadium will not be sold after Anaheim City Council voids agreement
A controversial issue in Orange County has been settled after the Anaheim City Council voted unanimously Wednesday to void an agreement to sell Angel Stadium and the surrounding property to Angels owner Arte Moreno and SRB Management LLC.
The decision kicked off a legal process Wednesday that introduces conflict of interest concerns.
The decision during Tuesday night's City Council meeting came a day after Harry Sidhu resigned as mayor of Anaheim amid an FBI investigation alleging that he fed insider information to the Angels in the hopes of a substantial campaign donation, as well as cheated on sales taxes for a helicopter he bought.
The City Council received notice May 16 of a federal investigation into Sidhu's involvement in the sale of Angel Stadium and the site proposal. The council asked the city attorney to inform the Angels of the decision to void the deal Wednesday, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times..
"The stadium proposal was evaluated and approved on its merits," Mayor Pro Tem Trevor O'Neil, who is handling the duties of mayor per Anaheim's city charter, said in a statement released by the City Council on Tuesday. "However knowing that there may have been an element of corruption that brought the final product to us, we cannot move forward in good conscience."
The stadium site sale was immediately voided because of the council's actions and SRB Management LLC, made up of Moreno and his family, was notified of the sale void.
The city-owned stadium and 151 acres of land was set to sell for $320 million, paid partly in cash and partly in affordable housing and a park built on the stadium site.
The Angels have a lease to play at Angel Stadium through 2029 with the option for three three-year extensions through 2038.
Rep. Lou Correa, D-Santa Ana, said that the city should never sell the stadium property, and added that instead of selling the stadium, the city should move to buy the baseball club.
"Anaheim should never sell that property," Correa said. "If you're going to do anything you lease, you don't sell."
Correa, along with Assemblyman Tom Daly, D-Anaheim, and state Sen. Tom Umberg, D-Santa Ana, have sent letters to the city demanding more accountability on the proposed sale.
The City Council's next step is to start a legal process that will involve filing a motion for declaratory judgment in Orange County Superior Court based on concerns of conflict of interest and that the transaction was "not at arm's length," according to a statement from the council.
Additionally, the council ends prior negotiations involving the sale of the stadium site that started in 2019 and resulted in agreements approved in September and October 2020.