A state appeals court ruled Wednesday, March 7, that Anaheim largely complied with open meeting laws during the now-defunct Angel Stadium negotiations.
The nonprofit People’s Homeless Task Force Orange County filed a lawsuit against Anaheim in 2020 alleging the City Council’s discussion and even the decision to sell Angel Stadium really happened behind closed doors, in violation of a state open meeting law known as the Brown Act. An Orange County Superior Court Judge rejected their arguments in 2022.
Appellate court justices in their ruling this week agreed with the superior court on most alleged violations, but said Anaheim did violate the Brown Act when it allowed only emailed public comments for two meetings in late 2020.
The court found that evidence supported that there were no improper discussions of whether the city should sell or lease Angel Stadium in closed sessions.
The court also found that the City Council had not created a negotiating team that would be subject to the Brown Act for discussions with the Angels, through Mayor Harry Sidhu at a June 2019 council meeting said he was establishing one for the city with himself, the city manager and the city attorney.
“Notwithstanding Mayor Sidhu’s earlier ineffectual pronouncement about a ‘negotiating team,’ the actual resolution adopted by the City Council simply made an individual appointment of Mayor Sidhu to represent the City Council in any future meetings with the Angels, and also to work with unspecified Anaheim staff in the course of the negotiations,” the appellate court justices wrote in their opinion.
City spokesperson Mike Lyster said in an email that the city welcomed the ruling.
“For a second time now, a court has determined that Anaheim followed the Brown Act,” he said. “For whatever other issues may have come to light with the stadium proposal, we stand by the city’s open, public process.”
The court did take issue with the city limiting public comment to…
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