This morning over 100 of Orange County’s Republican local elected officials came together in Anaheim for the first in a what promises to be a series of quarterly events for the OC GOP’s local elected officials committee.
Anaheim Mayor Curt Pringle spoke to the crowd at the Disney Resort property about innovation in government including some key examples of what he has done in his town.
Pringle along with his coalition majority on the five-member city council has done some great things since they got there a little over three years ago.
The mix of a dynamic real estate market and a city government that virtually got out of the way of developers, has brought what will in the coming years be close to 10,000 new residential high-rise units to the area surrounding Anaheim Stadium that is now largely one and two story industrial.
Other great ideas that Pringle has actually implemented include:
-A tax holiday for businesses. If during a special three month period last year you moved or opened a new business in Anaheim your taxes were waived for a year. And if you were late on paying your taxes, you were able to get caught up without paying penalties.
-A home improvement holiday and amnesty. For a three month period last year you could file to add on a room or fix-up your house and all city fees were waived. Also, if you had an unauthorized or out of code addition on your house, you could tell the city, get the permits to fix it and not pay any penalties. The net result was about $28,000,000 in home improvements.
-Wireless Internet citywide. Pringle believes that city resources such as ball fields and even medians should be used to the fullest by all residents. Lucky for the Anaheim they own their utility and thus they had no hoops to jump through to use the street lights. They put out an RFP to blanket the city with wireless Internet service by allowing the providers to use street lights and traffic lights for their antennas. They were offering no cash and no guarantees for usage, just the chance to offer the service. Earthlink bit and by the end of this year every inch of the city will have wireless available at a better price than they can get it now.
-Another idea that is near and dear to my heart–cel towers. As the city installs lighting for play fields, they are offering, without discretionary approval–without the need for negotiation, to have the ability to put cel transmitters on the lights (which are usually as tall as cel tower). And the rent that comes from those mobile phone companies goes directly back to the park facility where they are located.
Pringle and his majority demonstrate to us all that age old message of: you can accomplish anything if you don’t worry about who gets the credit. Whether he want it or not Curt deserves a lot of credit.
Every one in local government can learn from Anaheim’s innovation of late.