Somewhere among my personal papers is a folded and tattered poster of Mickey Mouse commemorating his long reign as the world’s most famous rodent. It shows scenes from some of his iconic short films – “Steamboat Willie,” “The Band Concert,” “Brave Little Tailor” – above the caption “Thanks Mickey for 60 years!” »
Signed, Disneyland.
My fourth-grade classmates and I received the posters in the fall of 1988 at Patrick Henry Elementary School in Anaheim, along with a T-shirt depicting a tuxedoed Mickey wearing sneakers and a free trip to the happiest place on the planet for his birthday party. We cheered alongside children from all over the world and rode into the evening. I can still hum parts of the squeaky, happy song from the parade in Mickey’s honor. (A quick YouTube search confirmed I had the correct tune.)
The poster hung on my wall until middle school, even though I was more of a Donald Duck fan. It was a symbol to me that a company whose products and productions I loved cared about us, the children of Anaheim. How cool was it that one of the most popular theme parks in the world was in my hometown? And how cool was it that they let us kids hang out with Mickey for free on his birthday?
I hadn’t thought about my memory in decades until yesterday, when the Anaheim City Council passed a new pro-Disneyland ordinance. Zoning rules will be relaxed so Disney can build new attractions and hotels on its 490-acre campus, and three public roads will be sold to Disney for $40 million.
In exchange, Disney promises to undertake nearly $2 billion in construction over the next decade, give $30 million to a yet-to-be-created public housing trust run by Anaheim, devote $8 million to the improving the city’s parks and paying $45 million for “transportation.” improvements,” according to the website for DisneylandForward, the name Disney has given to its projects.
A Disney-funded study by the Woods Center for Economic Analysis and Forecasting at Cal State Fullerton predicted that the company’s most ambitious proposals — a complete buildout of Disneyland and Disney California Adventure, and a new hotel — would create tens of thousands of jobs and would generate $244 million in annual tax revenue.
Who could be against this windfall of money and pleasure? Me of course!
The Anaheim City Council unanimously approved the deal despite Disney’s lack of concrete plans — all it reveals so far are “possibilities” inspired by attractions at its parks. themed around the world, according to the DisneylandForward website. There may be more details in the Woods Center forecast, but city officials and the public can only see a nine-page summary because Disney claims it contains proprietary information.
This enigmatic mouse has long since replaced the Mickey of my childhood memories. By the time I became a journalist, I knew that Disney had long treated Anaheim like a political buff, seeking to distance as much as possible from Orange County’s largest city.
Walt Disney Co. CEO Bob Iger at “Mickey’s 90th Spectacular” at the Shrine Auditorium in 2018.
(Valérie Macon / AFP via Getty Images)
In 1996, the city paid $108.2 million for a parking lot — at the time the largest in the world — which it leased to Disney for a dollar a year, allowing the company to keep all the revenue and to eventually become its owner. A 2017 Times analysis found that Disney had “obtained subsidies, incentives, rebates and protections from future taxes” worth more than $1 billion over the previous two decades. Disney has repaid that goodwill with millions of dollars in donations to political action committees pushing pro-Mickey candidates.
Two years ago, FBI agents and city-funded independent investigators called a Disneyland Resort lobbyist a member of a “cabal” exerting undue influence over city politics. Meanwhile, the cost of a day pass to the Mouse House increased from $43 in 2000 to $194 last year. The complex’s nightly fireworks displays scare dogs, set off car alarms in working-class neighborhoods and turn the 5 Freeway into a smoky disaster.
Yet, to paraphrase the most famous quote from “The Usual Suspects,” the greatest trick Disney ever pulled was convincing the people of Anaheim that its bad side didn’t exist. DisneylandForward’s few skeptics were easily drowned out by the proponents.
Unions? Leaders showed up to support DisneylandForward when the Anaheim City Council first voted on it in April. The board? From Republican Stephen Faessel to progressive Carlos Leon to independent José Diaz, they asked almost no hard-hitting questions. The millions of Disneyland Resort visitors, half of whom seem to be my cousins and friends? They celebrate like the Ewoks at the end of “Return of the Jedi” thinking of more rides to enjoy and gifts to collect.
Only a few cranks among us refer to the environmental impact report which concludes that construction noise and permanent change in air quality resulting from the expansion would be “significant and unavoidable”. Or get out a calculator to crunch the numbers from the Woods Center report.
For example, the study states that if Disneyland maximizes its square footage and builds a new hotel, it will create 28,352 jobs, resulting in $1.8 billion in revenue for those employees.
It looks nice and big. But it does not specify what type of jobs these are or whether they will be permanent or full-time. The average annual salary of $63,487 from these jobs is considered low income for a one-person household in Orange County, according to the California Department of Housing and Community Development. These are not the jobs that Anaheim residents need to be able to afford to live here, let alone live a good life.
I still remember when Anaheim was a town of factories and blue-collar jobs that allowed my immigrant elders and cousins to buy homes. Near my grandmother’s apartment where I lived before transferring to Patrick Henry was a lumberyard, a Kwikset factory, and a trucking depot where my father collected freight containers.
All these places disappeared decades ago. Today, there are hip hangouts, beer gardens, and high-priced apartments, because Anaheim’s leaders followed Disney’s lead and turned my hometown into a tourist trap giant, with long-time residents little better than an afterthought.
Which brings me back to this Mickey Mouse 60th anniversary poster. I finally took it apart because the edges were fraying and I thought it would one day become a collector’s item. I thought Disneyland had given me another wonderful prize.
I recently viewed the poster on eBay. I can get one for $20. But hey: at least I got something free from Disney back then.
In 2016, the company committed to giving all Anaheim sixth graders free Disneyland tickets in honor of its 60th anniversary if they completed community service projects.
The promotion was supposed to continue for a decade but was halted in 2021, during the pandemic. It hasn’t been restored yet, although Disney just announced that its theme parks division increased revenue in the fiscal second quarter to $8.39 billion.
Stay classy, Mouse House!
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