Following an FBI probe into the sale of Angel Stadium, the city of Anaheim nixed the $320 million deal surrounded by allegations of corruption. Now, the Anaheim City Council is considering its next move.
Bill Shaikin covers baseball for the LA Times and spoke with Kelvin Washington about the deal on “LA Times Today.”
For a while, the deal seemed like it would go through. Then, the FBI came forward with an affidavit and everything came to a halt. In the affidavit, the FBI alleges that Anaheim Mayor Harry Sidhu was offering the Angels information they could use against the city in negotiations. Shaikin explained the Angels will still have a home in Anaheim.
“The Angels are not homeless. They still have a lease to play at Angel Stadium. They can stay there as long as 2038. So, my suspicion is, for the next few months and probably for the next two years, what it looks like around Angel Stadium is going to be what it looks like right now, a stadium surrounded by acres and acres and acres of parking lots,” Shaikin said.
Former mayor Harry Sidhu was involved in what the FBI called a “cabal” of corruption in the city. He resigned from his post. Shaikin said Sidhu was not the only official involved in the deal.
“The FBI affidavit is suggesting that the people who ran the city of Anaheim were not really the elected leaders of the city of Anaheim... They are this group of the mayor, business leadership, the Chamber of Commerce. But other than the mayor, unelected people were basically dictating what the City Council did,” Shaikin explained.
One idea for where the Angels could play, if not Anaheim, is in Long Beach. Shaikin weighed in on whether that was a likely move.
“Pretty small chance. That’s a great waterfront location, a small footprint for development. Traffic hell,” he said.
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