I think municipalities should be free to make the best deal they can with large employers like this. Chips fall where they may. They are all elected officials so therefore directly accountable. Seems like the system is working just fine here.
Part of holding those officials accountable is reporting on what they're doing.
And, quite frankly, no, they should not be able to make deals like this. Not without the city voting on it. There is precisely zero reason why this is needed.
> They are all "elected" officials so therefore "directly" "accountable".
Please look into how campaign funding works. The fundamental problem is that if you employ half of the city, you have quite a bit more leverage than the mayor.
They gifted a parking garage/ 1 billion dollars of tax-payer funds to a multinational corporation who was hardly going to pull up stakes and move one of their flagship parks. How is this working fine?
Anaheim's population is roughly 350k. Disneyland has 22k employees. Obviously, not all of them live in Anaheim; anecdotally, at one time I knew a handful of Disneyland employees and only one of them lived in the city.
I'm sure Disney corporate, headquartered in nearish-by Burbank, employs some Anaheim residents too, but you're still talking about a small minority of Anaheim's citizens.
It's also not clear why an ordinary Anaheim citizen and employee of Disney would be happy with this arrangement.
> Chris Shively, an Anaheim resident and server at Blue Bayou restaurant in Disneyland, drives by the Mickey & Friends garage each day knowing that city tax dollars are paying for the facility.
> “It’s a company — they have their own best interests,” he said. “But it is definitely something where the company, Disney, got a great deal — a deal that we are paying for. Absolutely frustrating.”
I don't agree with the parent either, but this growing trend of accusing everyone you disagree with on the internet of being a paid shill is just getting absurd.
You guys pre-suppose the poor people in this town can't make up their own minds and are somehow oblivious to whats really happening. I guarantee each one of you that your opinion would be different if you lived in this town and worked for Disney. Who are we to tell these people how to vote?
What is your alternative? Pass laws to 'force' them to 'do the right thing' according to people who don't live there?
Doesn't seem like this is anyone else's business.