ANAHEIM, Calif.—Anaheim officials are calling for Mayor Harry Sidhu to resign after an FBI investigation alleges he engaged in unlawful conduct during city negotiations to sell the Angel Stadium.
Every member of the city council has called for Sidhu to resign.
Anaheim Mayor Pro Tem Trevor O’Neil and Councilmen Stephen Faessel and Jose Diaz formally requested the resignation on May 18 in a letter to Sidhu’s lawyer.
“The deeply troubling issues that have come to our attention involving Mayor Sidhu ... raise serious concerns and questions about his ability to continue as mayor of Anaheim,” the letter reads.
Meanwhile, Councilman Jose Moreno urged the city attorney to launch an independent investigation with an outside firm to determine if any other city staff was involved in the alleged scheme.
According to an FBI affidavit on the matter, in part, Sidhu provided confidential information to representatives of the Angels baseball organization when they were in negotiations with the city for the purchase of the Angel Stadium, “with the expectation of receiving a sizable contribution to [Sidhu’s] reelection campaign from a prominent Angels representative.”
Moreno further urged to remove campaign funds from major companies to “mitigate the undue influence of money in the governance” of Anaheim—including the city’s largest employer the Walt Disney Company.
“I ask Disney, formally, to please cease all campaign donations to our elections in Anaheim,” he said.
Moreno and Councilman Avelino Valencia informally called on Sidhu to resign during the Tuesday city council meeting, but did not contribute to the formal request.
“I can’t recall … such a dark day as yesterday in Anaheim’s history and it’s daunting,” Valencia said. “Tonight I’m calling on the resignation of Mayor Harry Sidhu.”
Valencia said he was “saddened and angry”—urging the council to take action and address what he called the “abuse of public trust and corruption.”
He later told The Epoch Times he was unaware that the letter was being written by his colleagues at the time.
Councilwoman Gloria Ma'ae also called for Sidhu’s resignation in an informal statement on May 18.
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