Character Makes Anaheim a Champion

At 146 years of age, Anaheim is one of Orange County’s oldest communities and is still reinventing itself. If only to prove that age is no barrier to a sense of humor, Anaheim says it wants to parlay the hometown Angels’ World Series championship last year into the city’s marketing strategy. Sort of the reverse of guilt by association.

The best you can say is that it’s a harmless effort. Nobody will get killed. At worst, some people look silly.

C’mon, the notion that a town can morph from relative anonymity into a major-league metropolis -- and do it on the coattails of a baseball team -- sounds rather small-town.

Put it this way: If 48 years of Disneyland hasn’t made Anaheim all it can be, what makes anyone think something as fleeting as a World Series banner will do the trick? Given baseball’s cruelties, the Angels might find themselves in the middle of the pack this season. Try marketing that: “Anaheim, home of the third-place Anaheim Angels!”

I come not to bury Anaheim, however, but to praise it.

And to make a modest observation: Anaheim is growing up and reinventing itself just fine without the Angels.

Cities are defined in different ways. Sometimes they get lucky and find themselves situated next to a seashore and with an educated, largely affluent population that can pay the freight.

But in this era of multiculturalism, immigration and shifting social-class strata, cities such as Anaheim don’t have it easy. They experience lots of growing pains and face tougher decisions than places that don’t have as many competing interests. It’s much tougher for Anaheim to define itself than Newport Beach.

One way a city builds an identity, however, is by how it handles such change. It can be hidebound and try to thwart the change thrust upon it, or it can take charge of its own destiny.

Anaheim is doing the latter. A new council majority has reversed the previous council’s desire to impose length-of-stay restrictions on poor people in some city motels. The new policy helps the city’s working poor, and says something about the city’s heart.

Anaheim school district voters rejected the reelection bid last year of Harald Martin, a lightning rod for controversy. It’s not that Martin was always wrong; it’s just that his combativeness and perceived hostility toward the city’s changing face contributed to an identity Anaheim doesn’t need.

Martin once wanted to dump manure on a city park to discourage gangs from congregating. There’s some kind of fighting-fire-with-fire analogy in that, but let’s move on.

Also, new Mayor Curt Pringle made a very public decision last year while campaigning to side with a faction that wanted to open a Latino-oriented supermarket. His decision, coupled with his subsequent election, also helped redefine Anaheim. As was the previous administration’s commitment to refurbish the Jeffrey-Lynne neighborhood, long associated with urban blight.

Ben Karmelich owns one of the motels targeted by the previous council. “The old vibe was that the city wanted the motels gone,” Karmelich says. “The vibe now is that they care about the people. It has restored my faith in city government.”

People on the other side of the issue probably feel shaken by city government.

From my seat in the grandstand, however, it looks like Anaheim is reinventing itself as a city that understands what it truly is: a city with an international array of ethnicities and residents who want City Hall to have a heart.

In these tough times, that’s not as easy as it sounds. It’s hard work.

Anaheim is giving it the old college try. In my book, that’s says more about the city’s character than being the home of the baseball champs.

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821, at dana.parsons@latimes.com or at The Times’ Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626.