The Anaheim Chamber of Commerce used tourism dollars to improperly lobby nearly two dozen elected officials, according to a new report from the California auditor’s office.
Peril of Promotion
State auditors accuse Anaheim’s tourism bureau and the local chamber of commerce of improperly spending some tourism dollars on lobbying instead of promoting the Disneyland resort area in the latest chapter of OC’s largest corruption scandal in recent history.
Yet it’s unclear who they are – the report doesn’t name who was lobbied.
The tourism dollars came from the city and Visit Anaheim, the city’s tourism bureau, which collectively sent around $6.5 million to the Chamber over a decade according to auditors.
“The Chamber’s subcontract work plans and deliverable reports indicate that the Chamber used these funds for numerous services that involved political advocacy and influence, none of which fall within the allowable services,” auditors wrote.
Read: CA Auditors Lambast Anaheim’s Tourism Bureau, Find Improper Tax Dollar Spending
The Chamber has denied that any of the money was spent improperly, saying it was well within their rights to use the money on advocating legislation.
“Legislative advocacy is a valuable service that significantly benefits the Assessed Facilities,” wrote Chamber CEO Laura Cunningham in a letter to auditors. “Such activities align with standard operating procedures for tourism improvement districts across the state.”
Visit Anaheim is primarily funded by special taxes on hotel rooms, known as transient occupancy tax, a portion of which is then slated to go toward tourism promotion and funding the bureau’s operations.
Auditors listed instances they could find of the funds being improperly used from 2012 to 2022 in their report, and highlighted just over two dozen elected officials the Chamber had meetings with.
During that time, the Chamber of Commerce heavily backed disgraced Mayor Harry Sidhu’s 2018 campaign through independent expenditures and also supported the now-dead Angel Stadium land sale that would’ve sold the stadium and the 150 acres it sits on for $150 million in cash.
The former Chamber CEO, Todd Ament, was Sidhu’s de facto chief of staff at City Hall. Ament has pleaded guilty to a series of federal charges.
[Read: FBI Reveals What Many Anaheim Residents Felt For Years, City Hall is Run By The Chamber of Commerce]
Sidhu pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice for lying to federal investigators about trying to ram through the stadium deal for $1 million in campaign support from team officials.
So Who Got Lobbied?
The report pointed to nearly a dozen state legislators in 2017 alone, and also listed at least seven city council members, a county supervisor, a district attorney, a state senator, a state assemblymember, the county registrar and at least two members of congress .
Some elected officials are already beginning to ask who the Chamber improperly lobbied that were highlighted by the auditors.
Congressman Lou Correa (D-Anaheim) called for a federal investigation of the Chamber and Visit Anaheim on Wednesday, and in a statement to Voice of OC said he wanted answers on who the legislators were that were mentioned in the report.
“Until we know when and how the money in question was used, we would not be able to determine if those funds were used in the Chamber’s outreach efforts with relation to our office,” said Adriano Pucci, Correa’s spokesman, in a statement last week.
“This lack of transparency is precisely why Mr. Correa called for a federal investigation into this matter today.”
Jackie Koenig, spokesperson for State Senator Tom Umberg (D-Santa Ana), who represents Anaheim in the state senate, confirmed they had a single meeting with the Chamber in 2019.
District Attorney Todd Spitzer, County Supervisor Doug Chaffee, Assemblyman Avelino Valencia, former Assemblyman Tom Daly and Anaheim City Councilmen Jose Diaz and Stephen Faessel, all of whom represented the city of Anaheim during the times laid out in the auditor’s report, did not respond to requests for comment.
Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @NBiesiada.
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