ANAHEIM'S REPUTATION OF GENEROSITY LURES NFL CITY OFFICIALS HAVE CAN-DO ATTITUDE WITH BUSINESSES.

Byline: Billy Witz Staff Writer

When Joe Manzella approached Anaheim officials several years ago about re-opening The Catch, a landmark restaurant and bar across the street from Angel Stadium, he wasn't expecting much help based on his experience running an eatery in a nearby city.

``It turned out to be the biggest breath of fresh air,'' Manzella said Thursday while presiding over a business lunch crowd. ``Everything I brought to them, the answer was `How can I help you?' or `What do you need?' ''

Anaheim leaders' willingness to bend to the needs of business, both small and large, has turned an otherwise ordinary Orange County suburb into a magnet for major-league sports facilities.

It also is why the NFL has approached Anaheim as a possible site for a state-of-the-art football stadium.

``It goes back to Disneyland,'' said Alan Saltzstein, a Cal State Fullerton political science professor, referring to 1954 when a sweetheart deal prompted Walt Disney to chose Anaheim over Palos Verdes, Long Beach and Canoga Park, among others, as the site for his amusement park.

``Anaheim has this history of being very facilitative.''

Such a can-do reputation puts Anaheim in contrast with the three sites Los Angeles has discussed with the NFL the past 16 months - the Coliseum, the Rose Bowl and Carson. Those projects have been slowed by financial, political, preservation and environmental hurdles.

Anaheim city officials say that thanks to their sports facilities, convention center and Disneyland and attendant hotels, the city is well positioned to become the business and entertainment center of Orange County.

However, some critics contend that the city has been too generous, making poor business deals that cost its residents money.

``City councils are sugar daddies,'' said former Anaheim councilman Bob Zemel, who opposed the city's agreement with Disney on a $100 million renovation of Angel Stadium. ``The problem is it's not their sugar.''

What has fostered the city's pro-active stance, said Saltzstein, is Anaheim's unique mix of a conservative, pro-business electorate (and by extension, city council) with a large, often progressive, city government.

``The phrase I use is conservative socialist,'' Saltzstein said. ``Anaheim has always had very aggressive and generally popular, expansive city managers, and the mayor is usually quite supportive of ventures like these.''

Thus, while the players change, the philosophy hasn't over the years.

Anaheim, with a population of 343,000, is the 10th-largest city in the state but doesn't act like it.

The current stadium plans are holdovers from a 1996 sports-and-entertainment complex proposal that was so ambitious some suggested the name be changed from Sportstown Anaheim to Fantasyland.

In addition to its pursuit of sports teams, Anaheim has its own electric and water utilities, the West Coast's largest convention center (after its fourth expansion) and a recently-built $8 million clubhouse atone of its golf courses.

``Cities have personalities, and the city of Anaheim's personality has been one of thinking big,'' said city manager Dave Morgan, who has worked in Anaheim for 25 years. ``Historically, we've had enterprise operations and that's led to a more business and customer service orientation. It's driven leadership to be less bureaucratic and think in more entrepreneurial ways.''

``That's one of the reasons the NFL came to see us. They believe that we can do business in a very straight forward way. Other (cities) have painstaking processes and, not to be disrespectful, but that gets in the way of business.''

Anaheim's foray into major-league sports was a prime example. It landed the Angels in 1965 when Long Beach officials blanched at team owner Gene Autry's insistence that they be called the California - not Long Beach - Angels.

The city then lured the Rams from the Coliseum for the 1980 season, when it agreed to spend $33 million to enclose Anaheim Stadium.

In 1990, at the urging of then-city manager Jim Ruth, Anaheim entered into an agreement with Ogden Entertainment Services, which would back the sale of bonds on the $103 million Anaheim Arena - later known as the Pond. This despite having no basketball or hockey tenants lined up.

Though the arena, with its imported Italian marble, was hailed as state of the art at the time, Anaheim was on the hook to Ogden for $1.5 million if it had one tenant and $2.5 million for each year it had none.

Hampered in part by the post-Gulf War recession, Anaheim struggled to find a tenant until 1993, when Disney was awarded an NHL expansion team, the Mighty Ducks. Though the team was a huge early attendance success, the deal with Disney was so one-sided that Anaheim stood little chance of garnering a second tenant.

Talks with two NBA teams - the Clippers and the then-Vancouver Grizzlies, each of whom eventually moved - died in part because Disney controlled much of the stadium revenues, even when the Ducks weren't playing.

``It was said at the time that (Clippers owner Donald) Sterling made more money with six people watching his games at the Sports Arena than with a full house at the Pond,'' said Zemel, who was on the council from 1994 to '98. ``It was a good business decision by Disney, but poor by the city.''

The Pond proved expensive in other ways, too. To go forward with the deal, the city had to renegotiate its lease with the Rams, who had threatened to block the arena's construction on the other side of the 57 Freeway. The new lease gave the Rams an out, which they used to leave for St. Louis after the 1994 season.

That, in essence, put Anaheim in the position it is in now: working to land an NFL team.

In exchange for keeping the Angels in Anaheim through 2017 and changing the team's name from California to Anaheim, the city paid Disney between $20 million and $30 million, and relinquished many of the revenue streams (such as billboards) that covered the rest of the building's cost. Thanks to increased attendance the past two seasons, the city has recouped $2 for every ticket once attendance hits 2.6 million. The meant $900,000 last year.

``To me, that was a corporate gift to Disney (which has since sold the team),'' Zemel said. ``Our negotiators are educated and good people, but how does a city guy compete with a multimillionaire businessman? It's not a fair fight. They're not in the same league, no pun intended.''

There is one thing that Morgan and Zemel do agree on: this city council and mayor Curt Pringle won't open up the coffers for the NFL. At The Catch, where the mostly coat-and-tie lunch-goers overwhelming supported the city's pursuit of an NFL team, there was, well, a catch.

``The sweetheart deals are going to stop,'' said Bill Wind of neighboring Placentia. ``Public agencies are not allowing huge subsidies anymore. Those days are past.''

Billy Witz, [phone]

billy.witz(at)dailynews.com