Todd Ament, former CEO of the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce, at an event in 2011. (File photo by MARK RIGHTMIRE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER)
It was a tragically banal slice of vicious, small-time power brokering. Just a speck in the elaborate web of scandal that seized Anaheim city government, to be sure, but a textbook case of how two-bit tyranny can strangle a righteous American Dream.
Yes, the saga of Isa Bahu and his family’s gas station reads like a bad dime store novel. But it could cost Anaheim millions nonetheless.
A lawsuit filed against the city and former Anaheim Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Todd Ament seeks redress for years of inexplicable blockades, wrought by “a den of vampiric fat cats that have used increasingly sophisticated methods to usurp the municipal apparatus for their own pecuniary gain,” writes attorney Steven D. Baric with absolutely delicious flourish.
“Former members of the City Council and the Mayor’s Office have sold their votes, influence, contracts, voice and have conspired with Mr. Ament to both attempt to extort money from Mr. Bahu and to maintain an illegal monopoly interest through the municipal machinery.”
Former Mayor Harry Sidhu — who pleaded guilty to several felonies — conspired with others to hide information, conceal and destroy evidence and silence and intimidate witnesses, all under the color of California law, the suit maintains. And the suit alleges that Ament, who pleaded guilty to several counts of fraud, shamelessly tried to shake the family down.
The result for everyday folks in Anaheim Hills? Years of higher gas prices. Here’s what happened, according to the lawsuit and the investigative report ordered and paid for by the city itself.
A Shell station on the corner of La Palma Avenue and Imperial Highway in Anaheim, CA, on Tuesday, August 1, 2023. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Arco
Back in 1967, on the corner of La Palma and Imperial in Anaheim Hills, Isa Bahu’s father opened an Arco station. It was the only one on that corner. It did well.
But Orange County grew, and roads needed widening, and old gas stations needed environmental cleanup. There was eminent domain and legal wrangling and the Bahu’s Arco station was torn down in 2003 and scrubbed. City officials assured the Bahu family that it would be able to rebuild, eventually.
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In the interim, a Shell station went up across the street, belonging to Navaz Malik. Malik was good pals with Sidhu — contributed to Sidhu’s campaigns, hosted a Sidhu fundraiser. Now solo on that corner, Malik’s Shell station was charging 20 to 50 cents more per gallon than other OC stations, the city report said. And, mysteriously, Isa Bahu smashed into hurdle after hurdle when he submitted the paperwork to rebuild his family’s gas station in 2015.
Ament started calling Bahu’s sister May, offering to help shepherd the project through. They declined, saying they ran a station there for years and knew how to do it.
But Ament kept pushing. He wanted $50,000 for his assistance. “He was hinting to me that ‘you need help,’ not ‘do you want help,’” May Bahu told investigators.
Weirdness ensued. Edgar Hampton, then-president of the Anaheim Police Association, opposed the project in a letter to the Planning Commission. “There has never been another situation where the Anaheim Police Association was consulted to provide police department records for a planning department issue,” the suit says.
Former Anaheim Mayor Harry Sidhu in 2021.(Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)
The project was approved by Anaheim’s planning commission in 2019 anyway. And that’s when the “den of vampiric fat cats” swung into serious action, demanding that the city overturn that approval and reject the project, the suit contends.
Sidhu spoke directly to city workers about his “safety concerns” about the proposed gas station — a small matter that usually wouldn’t garner a mayor’s official attention. There would be traffic jams. Danger from fuel delivery trucks. Conflict with the nearby bus stop. Hazards to drivers, Malik and other big guns said.
Bahu contacted Ament. “You’re screwed,” Ament told him, according to the city investigation. “If you had hired me a year ago, you would be fine.”
But the Bahu family fought on. Of course, the Shell station wants to preserve its monopoly, they told city officials. Our project will drive down the price of gas in that corner of Anaheim Hills and tighten their margins. That might not be good for the Shell station, but it will be good for the people of Anaheim Hills.
More than 100 local residents weighed in, telling the city they wanted competition to drive down prices. City planners had already concluded that the station posed no safety risk.
But alas. council members who assured Bahu they’d support the project if the planning commission approved it reversed course. Then-Councilman Jordan Brandman said that if Bahu wanted Brandman’s vote, he must get Sidhu’s vote first. Brandman wasn’t going to vote against Sidhu. Other council members who pledged support also bailed. The project went down, and an appeal to sanity failed.
Perhaps in the pettiest move of all, city code enforcement removed a sign on the Bahu property supporting Sidhu challenger Ashleigh Aitken.
“I was aghast,” Linda Andal, Anaheim’s human resources director and former interim city manager, told investigators about the whole debacle. “It was very dirty, in my opinion.”
Redress
An empty lot where an Arco gas station once stood, left, and a Shell station, at La Palma Avenue and Imperial Highway in 2023. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Anaheim officials said the city does not comment on pending litigation. It has not received a new application for a gas station at the site, but if one were filed, it would go through the process anew.
Messages left for Ament and his attorney were not returned by deadline.
This sham sucked the Bahu property into a quicksand-like limbo, the suit maintains, costing “more than $300,000 on city staff man-hours, consultants, architects, attorneys, and private investigators” in an effort to “capitulate to the demands of the Anaheim City Council” between 2015 and 2019.
Bahu has sustained serious harm and incurred lost profits, special damages and general damages “in an amount to be determined by the trier of fact,” the suit contends.
The city also violated his federal right to petition the government for the redress of grievances by systematically denying him access to a meaningful appeal, and he seeks a court order demanding the city government properly fulfill its duties.
Not for anything, but the Shell station on East La Palma Ave. was selling regular gas for $5.29 a gallon this week, according to GasBuddy.
The 76 station .35 miles away was selling it for $4.99.
