City of Anaheim fires back at state agency over Angel Stadium land sale controversy

A couple of months ago, the state housing agency claimed that the Angel Stadium land sale was actually violating a low.

The agency told the city of Anaheim that it had two months to fix the problem, and Anaheim has recently come out and said that this violation is actually "erroneously issued." The city asked the state housing agency to go ahead and rescind it.

This gets complicated because the agency now says that this response from the city of Anaheim "doesn't change anything."

Bill Shaikin of the LA Times outlines why this is important:

"The city’s stance appears to set up a confrontation with the housing agency and puts the sale in renewed jeopardy. The housing agency could levy a $96-million fine against the city or refer the matter to the state attorney general, who could file suit to block the sale. The city also faces a lawsuit in which a citizens group has asked a court to overturn the deal on grounds the city did not comply with the state’s public meeting laws. A hearing on that suit is set for Feb. 14."

Bill Shaikin, LA Times

This has caused for the city of Anaheim to potentially sue the state housing agency over the Angels' stadium controversy.

Anaheim has more than one reason as to why they believe the state housing agency is wrong on their stance regarding the home of the LA Angels. The city has not responded since the state housing agency made it clear that the city's claims do not change a thing, but they have alerted the state of California for "unconstitutional impairment of contract."

The most glaring issue is that the state housing agency is saying that the deal for the stadium couldn't have been approved and gone through under a past version of the affordable housing law due to Anaheim having missed the deadline for getting into an exclusive negotiating agreement with buyer SRB Management, which is owned by Arte Moreno.

That company had not been with the Angels at the time the agency negotiated with the city. This opens a large can of worms when it comes to this issue, and it's not a situation the city wants to be in. There may be no baseball these days with the lockout, but controversy around the Angels' franchise seems to always remain.