Call for Anaheim Businesses to Give Should Start with Tait

Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait (Photo: Chris Prevatt)
Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait (Photo: Chris Prevatt)
Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait (Photo: Chris Prevatt)

Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait made charitable contributions by Anaheim businesses to charities that benefit at-risk youth in Anaheim a central component of his 2015 State of the City address with all proceeds dedicated to the ACT Anaheim Fund. ACT Anaheim stands for “Accelerate Change Together” and the fund is managed by the Orange County Community Foundation.

According to Cynthia Ragland, VP of marketing and communications, “$70,000 in proceeds from the State of the City will benefit ACT Anaheim, as announced at the event. In addition, we expect further donations to come in from individuals and business leaders who attended the event and expressed interest via response cards.”

Ragland tells TheLiberalOC that the Orange County Community Foundation doesn’t disclose information on individual contributions.

TheLiberalOC has since secured a partial list of contributors to the fund since the State of the City address. ACT Anaheim was formed with a pledge of $1 million in funding from Disneyland, Angels and Ducks for a total of $3 million. Mayor Tait urged all businesses operating in Anaheim to dedicate “time, talent and treasure” during his remarks at the State of the City last week.

If you run a business in Anaheim and wish to make a charitable contribution to ACT Anaheim, here’s a link you can use to donate: https://www.oc-cf.org/act-anaheim-support .

And what would really be great is if someone could send this link to Tom Tait. There’s no evidence that Tait personally or the Tait Family Trust, which spent significant funds in IEs to tear down candidates for re-election in Anaheim and Irvine, have contributed a dime to this fund since it was established more than three years ago. A call to Tait & Associates seeking information about contributions by the company to ACT Anaheim left on Tuesday morning hasn’t been returned (and if a sudden donation to ACT Anaheim has been made by the Mayor or his company, we’ll take credit for the nudge).

Estimates on the amount of money spent by the Tait Family Trust in negative mail in the last election cycle alone were more than $100,000. The Tait Family Trust spent a significant sum on mail to try and defeat then candidate Jordan Brandman.  Imagine if a similar amount were donated to these charities instead of politics?

Its’ not all doom and gloom for Tait when it comes to charitable giving. Under the “social responsibility” tag for Tait’s company lists these charities it has supported over the years:

GOALS Executive Director Dave Wilk said Tait & Associates has donated what he estimates is $100,000 in engineering and design services for two Dreamscape projects in the city. He viewed the contribution of these services to be more valuable than money for his charity and wishes other businesses and government leaders were as generous as Tait & Associates has been to his organization. His charity received the most from Tait & Associates and most regularly. To contribute to this organization, click here.

Likewise, the Orange Catholic Foundation tells the LiberalOC that Tait & Associates and Mayor Tait walks the talk.” Hank Evers, director of development and communications, tells us Tait & Associates have been Silver Sponsors of the organization’s Conference of Business and Ethics for the past several years where proceeds help students with the cost of tuition. This is a $3,000 a year commitment. Other sponsorship packages start at $500 up to $25,000. Evers says Tait is a generous donor to the Diocese and that the charity has seen an uptick in contributions since the State of the City Address but this could also be linked to the promotion of Catholic Schools Week which coincided with Tait’s state of the city address. To contribute to this charity, click here.

The Boys & Girls Club reports Tait & Associates made a $3,200 contribution in 2010 and Tait himself made a $500 contribution in 2012. They have seen no uptick in contributions since the speech. To contribute to this organization, click here.

We were unable to reach anyone from Taller San Jose or Creative Identity. We didn’t call the City of Hope as they don’t really have a presence in OC.

Not mentioned but a worthy example is the East Street Community Renewal Initiative or ESCRI; to donate to this charity, click here.

Now, as a liberal, I’m perfectly fine with Tait’s call for business interests in Anaheim to make contributions to charities benefiting the city’s at-risk youth. But perhaps the Mayor could have led by example here and cut a generous check either from his company’s coffers or his own checkbook given his family business has operated in Anaheim for decades.

The Mayor of Anaheim is a millionaire. His firm is large and successful. And while he and his firm do make charitable contributions, we’re surprised he isn’t significantly more generous considering he is using a bully pulpit to push other businesses to contribute. So we’re going to call on Mayor Tait to make a contribution to ACT Anaheim that matches the amount of money – dollar for dollar – that the Tait Family Trust spent on politics in 2014. It’s called “leading.”

 

 

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