Andy's Updates is the city of Anaheim's monthly email newsletter, bringing the latest Anaheim news right to your inbox.
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The future of baseball, a five-decade tradition in Anaheim, is a lot clearer.
In December, Anaheim’s City Council approved a purchase and sale agreement for 153 acres of land including Angel Stadium of Anaheim.
It’s the first step in a three-step process that calls for the Angels to stay in Anaheim for the next 30-plus years with a renovated or new stadium and development around it.
Here’s a summary:
2050: The Angels would commit to play in Anaheim for the next 30 years with options for an additional 25 years.
$325 million: SRB Management Co., a company led and controlled by Angels Baseball owner Arte Moreno, would buy 153 acres of city land, including the 45,483-seat Angel Stadium of Anaheim. At $2.1 million an acre, the sale’s value is at market rate and at the high end of Anaheim’s commissioned appraisal for the site with baseball, 12,500 parking spots and potential development.
Stadium: SRB Management would finance any renovation of Angel Stadium or the building of a new stadium.
Development: Land around the stadium could see homes, hotels and entertainment uses in the next 30 years as part of Anaheim’s planning for the area known as the Platinum Triangle. As land gives way to new uses, conservative estimates project $10 million to $20 million in net yearly city revenue from hotel, property and sales taxes.
Community benefits: The city could require that any development include affordable housing and parks and public spaces beyond what is required or typically seen. Anaheim could also seek union construction jobs with priority hiring for Anaheim residents.
Adjustment: The proposal includes a potential adjustment to the final cash payment for land and the stadium. The adjustment would reflect fair market value impact for affordable housing, added parks and public spaces and a workforce agreement, if requested by the city and included in community benefits.
With the approval of the purchase and sale agreement in December, in early 2020 the city will sit down with the Angels to talk about potential development, community benefits and the details of the team’s long-term commitment to play in Anaheim.
That would be followed by the submission, city review and potential approval of development plans by the team’s ownership, potentially by 2023 to 2025.
All three steps have to take place to wrap up the agreement.
There’s a lot of good in the proposal for Anaheim. Proceeds from a sale would be available for investment in our neighborhoods. And potential development around the stadium could bring ongoing revenue for years to come.
While Anaheim is proud to have built and owned Orange County's only Major League Baseball stadium since the 1960s, the proposal would get the city out of the stadium business.
It reflects a trend toward private ownership, as with Dodger Stadium, SoFi Stadium in Inglewood and Chase Center in San Francisco, the new home of the Golden State Warriors.
You can learn more at Anaheim.net/BigA.
Nearly 1,000 people have shared their thoughts about what they’d like to see in their neighborhoods as part of Anaheim First, a city-supported effort to hear directly from residents.
After a series of citywide town halls in late 2019, top neighborhood priorities have been identified with more chances for residents to take part in January and February.
At upcoming town halls, residents can learn more about identified priorities and share their thoughts on which is most important to them.
Here are the upcoming town halls:
- Jan. 15: District 1, Brookhurst Community Center, 6-8 p.m.
- Jan. 16: District 2, Dad Miller Golf Course, 6-8 p.m.
- Jan. 22: District 3, Anaheim Public Library, 6-8 p.m.
- Jan. 29: District 4, Ball Junior High School, 6-8 p.m.
- Feb. 6: District 5, Sycamore Junior High School, 6-8 p.m.
- Feb. 12: District 6, East Anaheim Community Center Gymnasium, 6-8 p.m.
The input from residents will help create a community assessment that looks at current services, neighborhood livability, housing availability, public safety, homeless help and other topics.
The community assessment is expected to lead to a strategic plan for the city to consider as we look to invest in neighborhoods.
In April 2019, Anaheim’s City Council voted to contribute $250,000 toward the community assessment and to support spending up to $250 million on neighborhoods in the next 10 years.
You can learn more about Anaheim First here.
On the first weekend of February in 1980, the Orange County Black History Parade was born.
The first parade had just eight entries, and traveled down a neighborhood street in Santa Ana.
Started by community matriarch Helen Shipp, the parade was a way to bring the community together and celebrate African American history and culture.
Special guests and grand marshals over the years include Yolanda King, Garry Templeton, Robin Harris and Mickey Mouse.
Since its start, the parade has grown exponentially in size and popularity. The cultural faire was added as a way to continue the celebration after the parade.
The parade moved to Anaheim in 2011, because Anaheim has the largest African American population in Orange County.
Anaheim is home to about 11,000 African-American residents, or about 20 percent of Orange County’s black population, according to numbers from the Census.
The yearly event now brings some 8,000 people together to watch more than 50 marching bands, parade vehicles, horseback riders, churches, sororities and youth and social groups march down Anaheim Boulevard.
This year, we’re celebrating the event’s 40th anniversary. The Orange County Black History Parade & Cultural Faire returns to downtown Anaheim on Saturday, Feb. 1.
The parade runs from near Pearson Park, at Anaheim Boulevard and Lincoln Avenue, down Anaheim Boulevard to Vermont before looping around back up to Center Street Promenade, where a street fair with food, boutique booths, music and festivities is held.
The parade begins at 10 a.m. and the cultural faire goes from noon to 4 p.m., with early bird shopping at 9 a.m.
This year to celebrate the event’s 40th anniversary, there will be an exhibit at Muzeo Museum & Cultural Center called “Celebrating Our Heritage, Embracing Our Past and Building Our Future.” It will feature photos, videos and artifacts from the parade throughout the years.
Can’t make it to the parade or missed the date this year? You can still see the exhibit through Feb. 29. More at Muzeo.org.
There will be a special blessing ceremony at 8 a.m. to open the exhibit and give community members a chance to see it before the parade starts.
For more, visit the Orange County Heritage Council at Oc-hc.org.
It’s a new year in Anaheim and 2020 is shaping up to be big.
This year, the Census Bureau is embarking on Census 2020, seeking to count every person in America.
Between now and Census Day on April 1, every home in Anaheim will receive an invitation to take part in the Census.
You’ll be able to respond online, by phone, by mail or at one of our community centers and libraries. Filling out the Census takes about 10 minutes.
Though it might not seem like a big deal to some, Census 2020 will mean a lot for Anaheim.
Each year, we receive more than $100 million in federal funding to help people here in Anaheim.
The amount of money we get is tied directly to the Census.
A big chunk of that funding goes to housing vouchers that let families afford to live in Anaheim.
We help more than 6,000 households in Anaheim pay rent, drawing on some $70 million in yearly federal rent assistance.
And we know there is more need out there.
Other federal funding goes toward community improvements, roads and public safety.
Right now, we’re creating an outdoor space at Anaheim Central Library with the help of a federal Community Development Block Grant.
The $740,000 project will add a performance stage, science demonstration area, sandbox, trike track, seating and landscaping.
At the Brookhurst Community Center, a federal grant is helping us add a teen center room that will offer homework help, service projects, recreation, arts and other activities for youths.
These are just some of the good reasons why you should to take part in the Census for Anaheim.
The goal of the Census is to better understand the nation's — and Anaheim’s — population.
You’ll see questions about how many people live in your household, whether you rent or own your home, gender, age, race and ethnicity information and other questions.
We know some may have concerns about filling out the Census. But no one in Anaheim should worry about participating.
The 2020 Census does not include a question about citizenship. And answers cannot be used for any law enforcement purpose or to determine eligibility for government benefits.
Help Anaheim count by filling out your Census form online, in person, by phone or mail.
You can learn more at Anaheim.net/Census.
We’re working to make a better Center City.
We know it best as the hip shops and dining of Center Street Promenade, the Packing House and the MAKE building. The beautiful historic homes, active city parks and other local hotspots along Anaheim Boulevard.
This spring, we asked you to tell us your vision for Anaheim’s downtown and surrounding area.
Now that we have that input from residents, businesses and ourselves, we’re ready for the next step. We’re doing a follow-up round of community outreach to confirm the main themes we heard and collect any additional thoughts you might have.
Once we do that, we’ll create a vision plan for what we call the Center City Corridor. That’s the part of the city around the downtown area, stretching along Anaheim and Harbor boulevards between the Santa Ana (I-5) Freeway and the northern limits of our city bounded by the Riverside (91) Freeway.
The plan will touch on transportation, infrastructure, land use, parks and open space, aesthetics and economics.
Join us at our open house on Thursday, Jan. 9, from 6-8 p.m. at the Downtown Anaheim Community Center, 250 E. Center St.
You can also share your thoughts online at Anaheim.net/C3.
Questions? Call (714) 765-4568 or email ethien@anaheim.net.
You’ve probably noticed her in downtown Anaheim.
Her trademark flash of orange, a friendly smile and a wave as she whizzes by.
It’s FRAN! The easiest way to get around Center City.
FRAN, which stand for free rides around the neighborhood, is Anaheim’s on-demand fleet of electric vehicles that offer free rides throughout the downtown area.
The service’s name also comes from Anaheim history. Francisca Avila Rimpau, FRAN’s namesake, was a founding pioneer in our city. Each vehicle bears the name of one of Francisca’s daughters and granddaughters.
This year, we’re celebrating FRAN’s first birthday. In just one year, the service has served more than 40,000 riders.
And year two looks even brighter.
In honor of the occasion, we’re expanding service to make FRAN even more convenient for residents, businesses and visitors.
You'll soon be able to catch a ride to and from several new stops: Central Library, Washington Park, Pearson Park, Founder’s Park and Citrus Park. And a bit further down the road, we’ll be adding FRAN stops in various neighborhoods around downtown.
The idea? Ditch the car and still enjoy all the fun restaurants, shopping and entertainment in our downtown, also known as Center City.
Even if you’re driving to downtown, FRAN makes it easy to park in any of our structures without having to worry about walking too far to your destination. Plus, it pairs perfectly with our new parking guidance system, which helps you find open parking spots throughout Center City.
Want to get in on the fun? Just download the Center City Anaheim app on your phone. You can use it to hail a free FRAN ride at one of our stops. You can also explore points of interest and find promotions from local businesses on the app as well.
Soon, the app will also have real-time parking information, once we get it linked up with our parking guidance system.
FRAN service runs Monday to Thursday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to midnight and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.
Learn more at RideFRAN.com.
It's easy to take for granted the basic services we rely on in our daily lives.
Water is one of those. We don’t often pay attention to it, yet when we turn on the faucet we expect it to be there for us.
At Anaheim Public Utilities, we work hard to meet that expectation.
For more than 100 years, we’ve served Anaheim residents and businesses with some of the most affordable and reliable water in the county.
And we take pride in providing high-quality, safe water to customers. That’s why we continually and rigorously test our water to meet or exceed stringent state and federal regulations.
There are new regulations for drinking water, implemented to address manufactured chemicals from past decades that have been found in groundwater.
These chemicals are known as PFOA and PFOS, sometime referred to collectively as PFAS.
They were used from the 1940s to the early 2000s in a variety of consumer products ranging from cookware, stain-resistant clothing and carpet as well as firefighting foam and in industrial applications.
These chemicals are no longer used in the United States, but they are persistent and have made their way into groundwater supplies after decades of use.
We now know that long-term exposure to these chemicals can cause health issues. That’s why we, and others, have begun closely monitoring them.
The levels detected in water in Anaheim and other communities served by the region’s groundwater supply are tiny, equivalent to grains of sugar in an Olympic-size swimming pool.
Anaheim has already taken some of our groundwater wells offline to ensure the safety of our drinking water, and have brought in more imported water that has not been found to contain these chemicals.
But imported water is more expensive — about double the cost of our own groundwater.
We’re taking several actions to cover these added costs.
We are using some of our financial reserves that are usually held for emergencies, reprioritizing capital projects and working to buy lower-cost imported water that we treat ourselves.
And we are proposing an increase in customer water rates. It comes to about $7 per month for the average resident.
We never want to raise rates. So when we have to consider doing so, we take it very seriously.
High quality, safe and reliable water is our No. 1 priority.
We’re doing everything we can to find long-term solutions to address the issue of PFOA and PFOS in groundwater so that we can avoid additional costs to our customers.
We’re leading the way, partnering with the Orange County Water District, in researching ways to treat groundwater so we can remove PFOA and PFOS and bring our own groundwater wells back online, with reimbursements to help reduce Anaheim’s costs.
We are planning to make investments to treat groundwater and avoid having to rely on more expensive imported water.
Part of that is commissioning our own studies to identify the right technology. We plan to begin construction in the coming years.
In the meantime, we’re doing what we can to help those who may struggle to pay the increased water rates.
We are launching a 10 percent water discount for seniors, veterans and those with disabilities who meet income levels. This program is similar to one we already offer for electric service.
In addition, there’s a new program set to launch this spring to help keep your bill level all year long. Rather than you paying more in the summer months and less in the winter, we’ll average out your bill so you have a steady payment that’s easier to manage.
These programs add to the already long list of helpful rebates and discounts we offer to make things easier for Anaheim residents and businesses.
With continued investment in our water system and innovation in water treatment, we’re working be able to have a sustainable supply of water and keep offering lower rates in the long run.
For more, visit Anaheim.net/waterquality or call us at (714) 765-4311.