How it started (yesterday):
As for the angels land deal, that is now totally on hold, if not back to square one.
How’s it going today):
City council members voted unanimously to immediately end all proceedings surrounding the stadium deal after more than two hours of public commentary in which residents spoke out against the deal and council members who initially supported him.
And that’s the ball game. There are still a few loose ends to work out – acting mayor Trevor O’Neil has called for the deal to be put on hold rather than killed off, to give city attorneys time to work out how to untangle the deal, but the council won’t. had none. – but City Solicitor Rob Fabela said: “I understand the current thinking is to find a possibility of annulment and that is what we will do.”
In the end, even council members who voted for the original sale of the stadium land, in which the city was to get $150 million for $500 million in ownership, seemed to have a strong sense that the former mayor talked about soliciting a $1 million kickback in exchange for the deal made the whole deal too toxic to touch. In a revealing statement, council member Stephen Faessel said: “If we start again, do it in 2025 when all of us, or most of us, are gone. It requires a fresh start with new faces.
The ball is now extremely in Los Angels Angels Landlord Arte Moreno’s court, although with a lease that runs until 2029, he may have to wait a while before struggling to move elsewhere in Southern California. (Not that he has any other places in Southern California offering him stadium deals, but that’s never stopped him before.) If he’s smart, which is decidedly an open question, he’ll let everything cool for a while before starting over with a new mayor and maybe new council members, and hoping he can still sell “But this former mayor who was forced to resign agreed to extend my exclusive control over the development of the stadium property, you can’t build anything without me bwahahaha!” Or, you know, maybe he’ll just decide to offer fair market value for the land, because all he’s going to do with $350 million is sign three shitty outfielders. Everything is possible! Unlikely, but possible!