Judge tosses Angels open-meetings suit, clearing one hurdle for stadium sale (until the appeal, anyway)

The two-year-old lawsuit charging the city of Anaheim with violating open meetings laws by secretly approving the cut-rate sale of Angel Stadium land to Los Angeles Angels owner Arte Moreno before any public hearings was finally resolved yesterday, with Orange County Superior Court Judge David Hoffer saying he doesn’t believe none of it:

Hoffer dismissed what was presented as key evidence — declarations by city Councilman Jose Moreno and former City Manager Chris Zapata — as “not credible” and said he had considered six claims made by a citizens’ group that sued the city to stop the deal.

“None of these claims have merit,” Hoffer wrote.

And:

“… the discussions and decision surrounding the sale of the stadium site were anything but secret and were fully vetted with the public. Given this record, petitioner and the public as a whole suffered no prejudice from any Brown Act violation that did occur, and there is no basis to nullify the decision to sell the stadium site,” Hoffer wrote in his Monday ruling.

The plaintiffs have ten days to appeal, which Hoffer already said previously he expected the losing party to do. Meanwhile, there’s still the state’s ruling that the Angels land sale violated the Surplus Land Act by not offering the land to affordable housing developers first, with the state still needing to decide whether to 1) fine the city $96 million or seek an injunction against the sale. So aside from the court action likely moving from superior court to appellate court, we’re still likely in a holding pattern here, with no definitive news to report — wait a minute, what’s that rendering buried in the L.A. Times article on the lawsuit?

Oh my god — it’s Cab-Hailing Purse Dude! Our favorite clip-art entourage lady has a friend! Sure, he’s trying to hail a cab when there’s none in sight, but that just goes to show the economic development that is at stake here — only if the Angels land sale goes through will the world see the invention of invisible cabs.