Gambling Nature Makes Anaheim a High-Stakes Player

If Anaheim were a person, it’d be a hyperactive guy named Lucky standing at the end of the craps table in Vegas with a highball in one hand, shaking the bones in the other and letting it all ride on getting 8 the hard way.

Everybody loves a gambler. The bigger the stakes, the better. If you don’t show up at the game with a big wad, why bother showing up at all? Anybody can play the nickel slots.

“It’s always been a city that tried,” says a county official.

Among the high-stakes items currently on the drawing board:

* Ongoing construction of the $100-million indoor sports arena with, as yet, no promise of a team to play in it.

* Ongoing negotiations with the Disney Co. over its proposed $3-billion expansion of Disneyland.

* Ongoing massive downtown redevelopment.

* The near wrap-up of a study on a talked-about $200-million “people mover” intercity rail system.

* Expansion of the convention center.

* Plans to annex Gypsum Canyon for a proposed 8,000-home development.

The list doesn’t even include the city’s lead role earlier this year in beating back the proposed sales tax increase for a new jail in Gypsum Canyon. Mayor Fred Hunter went toe-to-toe with Sheriff Brad Gates and never flinched. Last week, the county all but abandoned its attempt to fight Anaheim’s effort to annex Gypsum Canyon.

And after Gypsum comes Coal Canyon, the next canyon to the east and also in Anaheim’s sights.

Can’t anyone stop these people?

If I were a neighboring city, I’d be looking over my shoulder.

Run for your lives, Garden Grove!

The big-ticket agenda is part of Anaheim’s history, says former City Councilman and Mayor Bill Thom. “It is kind of typical of Anaheim and atypical of any other city in Orange County,” he said. “One asks one’s self, ‘Why? Why Anaheim? How does Anaheim do that?’ ”

A big part of the secret, Thom said, is the cash generated by the city-owned electrical system. The utility generates revenues not available to other cities and allows Anaheim the flexibility to take chances on big projects.

“That, in a nutshell, is what you can do with that kind of cash flow,” says Thom, who was mayor in the mid-1970s. “It allows you to do a lot of things other cities aren’t able to do.”

Stan Oftelie, executive director of the Orange County Transportation Authority and an Anaheim resident, said the city has a legacy of taking chances.

“Probably the thing that sort of illustrates its willingness to take chances was building Anaheim Stadium without the promise of a ball team to play in it,” Oftelie said. “They bet on the ‘Field of Dreams’ stuff--if you build it, they will come.”

With a track record like that, Oftelie said, building a new arena without a commitment from a team isn’t as scary a step. “If guys have a history of taking chances and being successful, you’re more willing to take chances. Not every good idea hits. When people thought professional soccer was going to be the next big thing, the California Surf played in Anaheim Stadium and I remember going . . . when there were 2,000 people in the stadium.”

Without doubt, Walt Disney’s decision to sprinkle fairy dust over Anaheim thrust its self-confidence into another dimension. When it comes to dreaming big dreams and having them pay off, it’s hard to top Disneyland, Oftelie said, recalling his own father being “convinced it would be (nothing more than) a fancy carnival.”

“They have a lot of vitality,” Oftelie said of city leaders. “They think big, and why do they thing big? Because they’ve had big success. How many other cities have a guy like Walt Disney show up and say, ‘I think I’d like to build an amusement park here.’ ”

Let’s face it, the city isn’t afraid to roll the dice. As long as you’re controlling the dice, you’ve got a chance to be a winner. Sometimes it comes up Angels; sometimes it comes up California Surf.

Says a longtime observer of the city: “There’s something both glorious and tacky about going to Las Vegas. And somehow, Anaheim has some of the same feel about it--a thousand guys wanting to hit it big.”