Kristen Maahs, a fourth-generation Anaheimer and a city commissioner, has announced her candidacy for the Anaheim City Council from District 5. “I am excited to put my hat in the ring to ask my long-time neighbors to elect me as our community’s Councilmember,” Maahs said in a statement. “Becoming the Councilmember for District 5 would allow me to further serve my hometown, a place which has deep meaning to me and generations of my family.” District 5 is currently represented by Councilman Stephen Faessel, a life-long Anaheim resident who is leaving due to term limits. Faessel has endorsed Maah ..read more

The powerful Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West is behind a ballot measure that would impose a 3% “gross receipts” tax on for-profit hospitals operating in Anaheim. The tax would apply to the share of the hospital owners’ revenue generated in either Anaheim or statewide. According to the notice of intent filed with the Anaheim City Clerk on January 10, 2024, the initiative’s proponent is Darrell Jerome, an SEIU officer who works as a medical assistant for Kaiser Permanente. Kaiser Permanente, which has a massive hospital facility in East Anaheim, is ..read more

Circulators are gathering signatures in Anaheim for an initiative to impose a 3% “gross receipts” tax on for-profit “general acute care hospitals.” The tax would hit any for-profit Anaheim hospital that provides “24-hour inpatient care” that includes “medical, nursing, surgical, anesthesia, laboratory, radiology, pharmacy” services. There are several Anaheim hospitals that would be subject to such a tax: West Anaheim Medical Center Anaheim Global Medical Center Anaheim Regional Medical Center Anaheim Community Hospital Paid signature gatherers began hitting the streets during the past ..read more

The leadership of UNITE-HERE Local 11, the militant hotel workers union seeking to recall Anaheim Councilwoman Natalie Rubalcava, has been consistently increasing members’s dues and giving themselves salary raises, according to a new report that reviewed the union’s annual filings with the U.S. Department of Labor. Local 11 Co-President Ada Briceno, for example, has increased her salary every year since the beginning of the COVID pandemic shutdown – when most of her members were unemployed. She currently makes a salary of $138,229, which is 22% higher than the $112,565 she was paid at the ..read more

The Orange Unified School District Board of Education voted last week to fill two vacancies by appointment. The vacancies in Areas 4 and 7 resulted from the recent removal of Trustees Madison Miner and Rick Ledesma in a recall election in which the state and local teachers unions played an outsized role. The recall results flipped the power balance on the seven-member Board of Education, putting teachers union-friendly Trustees Kris Erickson, Andrea Yamasaki and Ana Page in the majority. READ: How Will OUSD Board of Education Handle Two Vacancies Stemming From Recall? Trustee Erickson n ..read more

There are two vacancies on the Orange Unified School District Board of Education stemming from the successful recall of Trustees Rick Ledesma and Madison Miner on March 5 in a recall campaign spearheaded by teachers unions and the Democratic Party of Orange County. OUSD includes Anaheim Hills. Prior to the recall, the OUSD Board was controlled by a four member majority that was politically conservative and charter school-friendly and opposed by three union-friendly trustees: Kris Erickson, Ana Page and Andrea Yamasaki. Now, Erickson, Page and Yamasaki are in the driver’s seat. Tonight, the rem ..read more

Originally published in the Orange County Register on April 4, 2024. Despite a federally preemptive law that went into effect last year to crack down on organized retail theft, California is now working to introduce its own version in a way that could harm the small business community this state has worked so hard to support. The federal INFORM Consumers Act, which went into effect June of 2023, requires online marketplaces to “verify and share information on third-party sellers that handle a high volume of transactions on their platforms in an effort to deter bad actors from selling stolen or ..read more

Hotel workers union UNITE-HERE Local 11 partnered with a political organization funded by infamous cryptocurrency fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried to qualify a wage-and-work-rules measure targeting Glendale hotels in 2022. Bankman-Fried, who was co-founder and president of cryptocurrency trader FTX, was sentenced last month to 25 years in federal prison for defrauding customers of billions of dollars. A UNITE-HERE Local 11-controlled campaign committee took a $150,000 contribution from an entity controlled and funded by Bankman-Fried, and then later funneled 80% of those funds into Local ..read more

Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) Board of Directors has greenlit a collective bargaining agreement with the union representing workers in OCTA’s Operations Division, recognizing the pivotal role of Facilities Technicians and Parts Clerks in sustaining Orange County’s transit operations. The agreement, negotiated with the Transportation Communications Union/International Association of Machinist and Aerospace Workers (TCU), entails substantial wage hikes ranging from 11% to 13% over the next three years, commencing from April 1. Expressing gratitude for TCU’s collaborative approach ..read more

Anaheim’s ongoing efforts to combat crime and urban decay took a significant step forward with the demolition of the former Anaheim Lodge motel on Beach Boulevard this Tuesday. This marks the third motel demolition since 2021 and the fourth since 2002, all part of the city’s long-term strategy to revitalize Beach Boulevard into a more hospitable and pedestrian-friendly area. The removal of the Anaheim Lodge paves the way for the development of affordable apartments and townhomes, in conjunction with the adjacent Covered Wagon site, which was acquired by Anaheim in 2022 and demolished in 2023 ..read more