City of Anaheim Office of the City Manager August 23, 2022 The Honorable Erick L. Larsh Presiding Judge of the Superior*

The City of Anaheim demonstrated persistent lack of transparency and rushed decision-making in its handling of the Stadium Property transactions, exacerbating distrust by the public, State and local government officials, and even some members of its own City Council. Response: The City agrees that the timeframe between the Angels' initial offer to buy the property and the Council's decision to approve the initial PSA was an accelerated timeline. The City also agrees that it was consistently accused of being less than transparent by some members of the public and by some members of the Council. However, the City disagrees that it demonstrated a "persistent" lack of transparency based on the evidence discussed in this report. Independent of the former mayor's actions not subject to the Report, the City believes it did the best under the circumstances to provide transparency beyond the requirements of the Brown Act, fully realizing that there is always an argument that more could have been done. (See Sections A.2, A.3, A.4 and A.6, above) As such, the City partially disagrees with this finding.

The City's failure to timely disseminate and/or develop critical documents and information related to the Stadium Property transactions resulted in uninformed decision- making by the City Council. Response: The City agrees that the timeframe between the Angels' initial offer to buy the property and the Council's decision to approve the initial PSA was an accelerated timeline. However, the City disagrees that critical documents were not timely developed or disseminated or that the Council's decision was uninformed based on the evidence discussed in this report. (See Sections A.2, A.3, A.4 and A.6, above.) As such, the City partially disagrees with this finding. Letter to the Honorable Erick L. Larsh August 23, 2022

In conjunction with its alleged violations of the Surplus Land Act, the City limited creative affordable housing strategies with the Stadium Property transactions. Response: Had the City sent notices of availability of the property pursuant to the SLA (even though the City's position is that it was not legally required to do so), it is remotely possible the City would have received some proposals from affordable housing developers who were willing to buy the stadium property, assume all of the City's obligations with respect to owning and maintaining Angel Stadium (including contributing millions of dollars toward capital improvements), and then potentially wait up to 18 years to develop the site, once the Angels no longer had a property interest in the land.35 However, it is more likely that no proposals would have been received in light of the Angels' right to control the property until 2038. Further, the original stadium transaction would have included a 15% set aside of affordable apartments for very low, low and moderate (workforce) income households onsite with a minimum requirement of 466 affordable apartments and potentially as many as 777. This commitment to affordable housing on the stadium property was a priority from the beginning of negotiations and would have represented the largest one-time expansion of affordable housing in the City's history. (See Section B, above.) As such, the City partially disagrees with this finding.

On multiple occasions, the City Council majority blocked the Council minority from adding items to its agenda relating to the disposition of the Stadium Property, stifling public discussion about the pros and cons of such a significant land transaction. Response: The City partially agrees with this finding. The City agrees that there were multiple occasions when some Councilmembers attempted to add items to the agenda relating the Stadium transaction, and that they failed to receive the support of at least two other Council Members thus resulting in the items not being agendized. However, there were multiple opportunities for public discussion about the pros and cons of the stadium transaction. (See Sections A.2, A.3, A.4 and A.6 above.) Some can rightfully argue that there could have been even more although countless hours were devoted to public hearings and discussion of various aspects of the proposed transaction and development project.