The Orange County Register carries this story about Monday night’s DPOC resolution that the headline writer suggests was a censure of Anaheim Council member Jordan Brandman, the only Democrat on the council. The reality is the resolution condemned the actions of the Council majority of Brandman, Kris Murray and Lucille Kring, so details do in fact matter.
Brandman issued the following statement Tuesday night:
The central committee’s action emanates from a personal political vendetta against me by Dr. Jose Moreno, an individual with whom I have had a long standing dispute. Dr. Moreno believes he should be granted a seat on the Anaheim City Council without having to earn community support and work for it. He is wrong. At no time during the selection process regarding which districts would be on the ballot this election cycle did I receive any personal communication from him, the author of the resolution Mr. (Jeff) LeTourneau, or Chair (Henry) Vandermeir. They never directly spoke to me, emailed me, wrote me, or called me.
I have been one of the strongest supporters of single-member district elections to guarantee full representational equity in Anaheim. I endorsed the ballot initiative to create districts, signed the ballot argument in support with Mayor Tait, and actively campaigned for its passage. I have always fought hard for an Anaheim City Council that justly reflects the diverse makeup of our community and will continue to do so.
I have, in accordance with the map recommended by the districting committee, worked tirelessly to accomplish those goals. The current proposed ordinance includes putting two overwhelmingly Latino resident majority council districts on the ballot for November 2016 – District 4 which has a 68% Latino population & District 5 which as a 62% Latino population. The political action last night was more about choosing something specific that benefits one individual – Dr. Moreno, not the community.
I will continue to support efforts to increase minority and community participation in the political process, but I will not give in to political deals that pretend to benefit the whole community when, in reality, they only benefit one individual.
I did speak with Dr. Moreno Monday night and he confirmed he resides in District 3 and, should that District be opened for direct elections in 2016, he, and others, would be a candidate for a council run.
Brandman’s congressional opponent, former State Senator Joe Dunn, spoke at the meeting after it was formally adjourned to say he believed there were grounds for a lawsuit if the earlier council decision wasn’t overturned.
This is the second recent incident in OC where a major political party has dictated an elected official carry out the wishes of the party on a vote. Irvine Mayor Pro Tem Jeff Lalloway, a Republican, was replaced on the Air Quality Management Board by Republican Mayor Steve Choi with council member Christina Shea who carried out the wishes of the Mayor at the direction of OC GOP chair Fred Whitaker.
Thank you Jordan, for clarifying the fact that you are absolutely tone deaf as to the intent of the entire districting process. To reduce the fact that you and your two Republican cohorts have disenfranchised the sole Latino majority district residents, to a personal grudge match between Dr. Moreno and yourself, speaks volumes as to why you were unanamously condemned by your own Party governing body. Your attempts to justify your self-serving behavior would be laughable were it not for the fact that the hopes and dreams of so many of your constituents have just been tossed on the waste heap.
and where do you live in Anaheim again Jeff?
Sorry Dan but the way I was raised, compassion for marginalized people is not restricted to the borders of the town in which one lives. Sorry you were raised otherwise.
BTW, I lived on the west side of Anaheim from 1987 to 2002 and my business has been based in the city since 1992. Also, I represented virtually all of the Disneyland Hotel workers and all of the Disneyland Park food workers for nearly 10 years while working for HERE Local 681. This, in addition to being a compassionate human being, should qualify me to work for social justice in the city!
Jeff, I was raised in an air force town with more minority groups than you’d find normally. You aren’t qualified to judge how I was raised and I’ll gladly put my record of civic engagement for all sorts of people and causes up against yours anyday.
Jeff, I’d like to point out that your representation of Disneyland Hotel workers and Disneyland Park food employees was work you were PAID to do. Not quite the level of being paid to run a non-profit, but claiming union work demonstrates compassion for marginalized people loses a little muster while you’re signing the back of a paycheck.
You still owe Henry an apology
What I find laughable is that the guy driving the Jaguar and living in the Million dollar home in the hills so closely identifies with the plight of the immigrant population of central Anaheim.
As pointed out. Dr. Moreno is free to lose whatever reaces he chooses. After all he has been a Femocrat for what……all of 15 months.
Way to let others do the heavy lifting Jose.
What would be more laughable is if you would pay 1 million dollars for my $700,00 Brea residence, of which I only own half. As for the Jaguar, last time I checked it had 206,000 miles, had a blown head gasket and was worth $1000.00. Any other ridiculous assertions on your part?
you had 14 people sign your petition and let’s not make it sound like there were tons of people at the meeting; Looks like you’re down to about 8 people who really back you Jeff. Run for chair again; you’ll get fewer votes than last time.
If you did your research you would know that the requirements to submit a Resolution from the floor was 10 signatures. And by the way, with the exception of my signature the others all voted for Henry for chair, including 3 Vice Presidents and the Treasurer. Any other petty assertions?
I know. 10. Pretty small number all said. If you did your research, you’d know Anna Drive is in the 5th not the 3rd. Now what was it you were saying about white privlige?
Want to talk about that 17 year old you called a closet case for not wanting to sit next to a drunk man in his local movie theater? You focused on the word “man.” Most would focus on “drunk.” But to you, the kid’s a closet case. Don’t lecture me about petty.
What I don’t understand is why the council didn’t do what a newly formed city does. The majority of the council runs for a four year term and a minority runs (initally) for a two year term. The minority runs again in two years and the four year cycle begins for both groups.
It is not true that Jordan has been “one of the strongest supporters of single-member district elections.” At the huge August 2012 meeting at Cook Auditorium, when Tom Tait and Lorri Galloway were trying to get districting onto the 2012 ballot (because justice delayed is justice denied, and if it’d passed we would have had district elections by 2014 AND saved $2 million of Anaheim taxpayer money) Jordan read somebody’s prepared statement that was near-identical to the Disney letter that came out that morning, talking about how wonderful districting would be SOME DAY, but first it needed to be discussed, studied and debated at length for a few years. Which is what ended up happening, as Jordan, Lucille, and Kris got to easily continue the Klepto Majority running at large – four more years of looting the treasury!
Then his Loretta-chaperoned visit to Los Amigos a few months later, where he eventually agreed to agendize settling the districting lawsuit, was like pulling teeth. (Google “Contortions of Jordan Brandman” for video of that meeting.)
Then after being elected, he did vote in favor of districting and settling the suit whenever it came up – although he was always safely in a 2-3 minority with Tom. BUT there was a very revealing moment in summet 2013 where Tom wanted a vote to settle the suit, and for a little bit it looked like Lucille might be starting to be swayed by the very persuasive pro-districting arguments, and Jordan got a panicked look on his face and shouted “I call the question!” Can anyone find that moment on video? It would have been the June 11, 2013 meeting (google “Sirloin Dog Food Districting”) If Lucille had done the right thing like she accidentally nearly did, we coulda had district elections last year.
At best, Jordan has been a foot-dragging semi-supporter of districting. And now he’s told the city’s majority-Latino district they’ll have to wait another 2 years. Weak…
Huh. “…District 4 which has a 68% Latino population & District 5 which as a 62% Latino population.” Now there’s some BS. That’s counting little kids, documented non-citizens and the undocumented. A person making an honest case, which Jordan of course is not, would be talking “CVAC” – citizens of voting age. And the CVAC for Latinos in the 4th is 47%, 44% in the 5th. That’s why they’re called “pluralities” not “majorities,” let alone the overwhelming majorities Jordan is trying to paint.
In short, this is lipstick on the pig of Jordan’s anti-latino vote.
Finally, a unanimous vote of the DPOC is just a “personal vendetta” from the dastardly Dr. Moreno? Pathetic spin…
Dr. Moreno is welcome to respond in kind.
Statement dealt with population and is accurate.
Yes, accurate, dishonest, and purposely misleading – exactly your stock in trade as a public relations guy. Did you write it for him?
Look at the hand…
i don’t do political PR chap. Close your eyes and touch your nose Vern. Be my monkey.
“Doesn’t do political PR,” he says. What does he think this damn blog is?
Hey white chattering class!
Brandman’s comments are interesting as they are the only thing to contextualize this mess as a personal political feud. But it’s weak salsa because the vote to delay D3 to 2018 was the original feud-motivated move, one he can’t own up to. The council majority exploited the ‘Vanderbilt is Latino’ loophole to block a 2016 run by Moreno who lives in D3. They want to pin Vanderbilt down lest he carpetbag to a sudden “lesser” residency. This is also about blocking Tait from establishing a council majority of any odd political stripe.
As for the DPOC resolution? There’s a principal that is higher than the personal feud that all people are aware of even if they don’t espouse it. Brandman overreached and got some ol’ fashioned party discipline for it.
The council majority is silly and gives the prospects of a Moreno single district run too much head space. Just let the vato have his seat. There’s no real threat to power in that. The barrios are still going to be barrios and Star Wars Land will boom Disney to new heights. See you next riot!
Besides, Not a lot of Anaheim Mexis (and other voters in the city) pay close attention to the inside baseball of city hall which is why Brandman commanded strong Latino votes in 2012, simply because he’s a Democrat and most of them are, too.
Signed,
An Anaheim Mexi
It’s “principle” not “principal” and what you’re saying, I think, is Latino votes don’t matter? The Democratic Party needs Latino votes…how do we convince Latino voters to vote in Primaries and special elections and in November/non-Presidential year elections Gabriel? I’m all ears…..
Hey fellow honkies. Gabriel makes some good points but as usual writes in the turgid style of an over-eager grad student.
Please allow me to translate his comment into plain English:
“Jordan is the first to publicly cast this dispute as a personal political feud between him and Moreno. But it’s BS because he’s the one who started it (along with Kring and Murray) by delaying District 3’s vote till 2018. The majority cynically used Vanderbilt’s Chilean mother to cock-block a Moreno run in 2016. Somehow they hope this’ll stop James from moving and running in a different district as well(?) And as always, the last thing they want is a majority of Tait allies.
“DPOC resolution? Tough titties, Brandman had it coming.
“The majority shouldn’t worry so much about Moreno, and let him have the seat he’s worked so hard for – he won’t be able to make much meaningful change anyway. Also nobody is paying attention, and most Latinos will just vote for whoever’s Democrat.”
I hope that helps…
Fellow honkies? Nice 70s reference. Vern, GSR can speak for himself and your presumption to speak for him reflects more arrogance than you deserve to have.
Oh shut up, you. I’m as arrogant as I need to be. You didn’t understand Gabriel’s comment yourself, you should be thanking me.
An admission of arrogance and that you didn’t understand Gabriel’s comment. Hung over today Vern? Is all your Christmas shopping done? The 99 cent store must have been crazy yesterday huh?
Glad you know what’s best for brown people Vern since you leech off them
And I do that HOW, a-hole, since you think you know so much?
Well said Gabriel San Roman!
Ha! Vern, he of long-winded and disjointed posts, is going to distill a blog comment of mine? Dan C didn’t get it because he’s Dan C!
It’s funny to still see how Vanderbilt’s Latino identity gets pulled apart at the seams by liberals just because the council majority found a loophole in it. “He’s not, like, Latino Latino, he’s half-Chilean on his momma’s side!” Yeah, and his momma’s genes came strong with it, too! I don’t know Vanderbilt personally. I don’t know if he knows how to dance cueca or grew up eating empanadas, but he’s still Latino regardless. I’d vote for a Chileno in Anaheim in a heartbeat if he sounded like Salvador Allende! Stop with all the nonsense.
Even in district elections, working-class Mexicans living in Anacrime’s ‘priority neighborhoods’ aren’t going to elect themselves, but professionals to represent them. The closest they’ll get candidate wise (if he runs, which I’m sure he will) is Martin Lopez out of D4. He’s a polite man to boot who seems pretty honest and straight forward.
And Dan, gracias for the proof read! I don’t know how you took “Latino votes don’t matter,” away from my comment because they do. And they will more and more, especially with all those citizenship fairs that OCCORD does. Newspapers, radio and blogs will have to catch up and give Latino media makers some space to make sense of it all. With Chris out, you can recruit someone along those lines to continually answer that question going forward instead of posing it once to me in a comments section. (That goes for you, too, Vern, but at least you can count Ricardo Torro–a Anaheim Chilean–on your roster)
Peace!
Gabriel, you can write here anytime you want. No restrictions. I posted the interpretation as a question because it wasn’t clear. Of course Latino votes matter. On every election, they matter.
The dunce nods, slack-jawed.
Love the idea of Martin Lopez running. Great guy. He’d be going against the hateful Kring I assume. Has he intimated anything? I would walk precincts for Lopez v Kring. (I owe that to Lucille for all the lies she told me and my friends.)
Do Lopez a favor and stay out of it parasite. You will hurt his cause more than help him. El Mosquito is what you are known as in Anaheim.
Time to clear one thing up, James Vanderbilt’s mother is from PERU. Everyone keeps getting the wrong country, but to settle it once and for all, his mother was an IMMIGRANT FROM PERU. Still Latin America, so does not change whether or not he is half-Latino. I to like Martin Lopez and hope he runs in District 4. He is a good guy who stands for what he believes in but presents it in a professional respectful tone.
Didn’t you hear Letourno. Only Mexis who are inmigrants matter.
And Dan is trying to recruit Gabriel San Roman onto the Neo-liberal OC … that’s really funny too!
It’s an invitation, not a recruitment
Well, I think somebody above hit the nail on the head. We can all bitch and moan about “underserved”, “marginalized”, “poverty stricken” classes of society, NO MATTER WHAT THEIR RACE.
Some one at the Voice of OC commented less than .02% of actual Anaheim residents participated in this process. The figures shed a light on what this was about, and it was less about EQUALITY than getting a chosen one elected.
Like most Anaheimer’s I don’t care, this has VERY little affect on me and my children.
“Some one at the Voice of OC commented less than .02% of actual Anaheim residents participated in this process. The figures shed a light on what this was about, and it was less about EQUALITY than getting a chosen one elected.”
70% of voters, the vast majority of voters from EVERY part of Anaheim, chose districting elections. Pretty far from the .02% your anonymous troll source spouts off. And so of course the conclusions you draw from that figure are but another castle built on sand.
And this has very little “affect” (course you mean “effect,” I HOPE your children have some AFFECT) on you and your children. And you pretend to be politically involved. Which district are you in, an anonymous one where everyone uses fake names?
In a very low turn out election. Since you qualified Jirdan’s comments on population, you could acknowledge the poor turnout. Didn’t Tait get fewer votes than he did in 2010?
I decry every low-turnout election. But do you really think more voters turning out – the ones who usually don’t – would have resulted differently for districting or Tait?
Wait, are you anti-districting now? Damn, I miss Chris.
Yes, I think a higher turnout would have hurt Tait’s chances….I am not against districting, but I am pointing out you can’t condemn Jordan’s use of statistics in different districts and make it sound like districting has the support of all of Anaheim. You yourself talked about likely voters. Be consistent.
If I were unemplyed like you or Diamond I would go back link to the post, but, I have a family and a job that takes considerable more time than you and your friends seem to have jumping from meeting to meeting and writing endless blog posts to your seemingly four man readership.
Back on point
I remerber the post at the VOC doing the arithmatic on who spoke,who attended meetings who submitted maps and suggestions (including Greg’s straw man the hundred year old Jeep guy). I understand what the bsllot outcome was, but that was only the beggining. To call Jose Moreno anything but a race-baiter and/or poverty pimp is disingenuous at best. The thing is I don’t think most non-activist care much about this. We are busy raising good kids, which is more than I can say for your neighbors on Anna Drive.
Greg KNOWS who I am and where I live. He has called my place of employment. Ask him.
It’s understandable that if you rely on this blog for your Vern news, you’d think I was an unemployed drunk. But if can you wrap your mind around the concept of “successfully self-employed” then you can picture Vern Nelson, musician. Having got piano gigs in two different counties out of the way yesterday, as well as my obligatory church organ gig this morning, I was finally able to concentrate on some of my paid arranging work today. Since I do that at my computer, I like to occasionally wander off to a different window and see what sorts of untruths are being spread at my county’s fake liberal blog that day, and how I can help straighten things out.
It really doesn’t matter which VOC commenting sage pointed out that a tiny percentage of Anaheimers were involved in the minutiae of districting; 70% of Anaheim voters said “Yes, we want this thing,” and that’s what matters.
I remain mystified as to why you bother to comment on a local political blog, if you’re so apathetic that you don’t see how having your town divided into six manageable electoral districts could affect the lives of you and your kids. But carry on…
You rent a room Vern. Not an apartment. A room. You drive a beat up car. Your clothes are frayed. If you’re not on any sort of public assistance, that’s a positive. But successful? Debatable.
You ain’t seen my car, it’s in great shape. And you haven’t seen me in person (except from way across a room) in years, so you don’t know if my clothes are frayed. And if I rent a room it’s partly because I’m helping several other people with their hardships.
But this is boring and embarrassing, I’m starting to sound like Dan C the Pharisee. Think what the hell you want.
Saw you at Bao’s 100 days as mayor luncheon; you got in for free (and you reminded me you didn’t eat; thought you probably should have). Any other untruths you want to peddle?
You were sitting outside on the grass. Your clothes were disheveled and dirty.
Helping other people with their hardships? So do I…family back East count on us (cancer sucks) and we come through and still manage to do better than rent a room.
I’ll break my silence here (due to your bullsquirt moderation policy) simply to issue you a takedown notice.
The poster using the name “David Vasquez” is lying. I do not know who he is. I have not called any place of employment seeking a “David Vasquez.” I don’t want to embarrass a real and innocent “David Vasquez” by following a trail that someone of bad will has set me to follow.
You’re allowing him this forum and your animus has been repeatedly shown. Take his comment down and ban him. Provide me with whatever means of contact you have for him so that I may effect personal service upon him at the time of my choosing. Or … you can stand in his shoes.
1. Your silence here has been welcome. I don’t care if you ever comment here again. Thanks for reading.
2. I don’t know who David Vasquez is either. I have no email address that works for him. I won’t reveal his IP address to you because I think I asked for that from Vern once and he refused.
3. Given how you have documented searches to ascertain identities of people who don’t wish to be targeted by you, if I had evidence of who David was, it would simply expedite your attempts to go after him.
4. Your denial that you contacted his employer is noted. I’ll remind you your little group of friends accused me of calling Ryan’s employer when I have neither the desire nor time and energy to willfully harass Ryan in any way save for noting how many blog comments he posts during the working day….try the commenters on Anaheim Blog.
5. I wouldn’t put it past you to contact or call “David’s” employer if you knew who he was.
6. I have deleted previous comments from Vasquez that are over the top, name people not included in the original post or not mentioned in the comments. Go ahead and ask him, he’ll back that up.
7. My lawyers assure me this blog’s commenting policy is on sound legal ground.
8. There are a lot of people who don’t like you. There are a lot of people that don’t like me. There are a lot of people that don’t like Matt Cunningham. There are a lot of people that don’t like Vern Nelson. There are a lot of people that don’t like Gustavo Arellano. Will it stop any of us from writing? No. Quit your bitching.
9. I’ll note something you wrote at OJ over the weekend about the mysteriously funded Anaheim blog; nicely put considering you represent the mysteriously funded CATER with phantom members.
10. If you don’t comment here again anytime soon, there’s no skin off my nose. Be a stranger.