Anaheim’s next mayor will lead the City Council through four years poised to be full of progress and big decisions.
Awaiting Anaheim’s elected leaders in the years ahead are a multi-million-dollar windfall that’ll be hitting city coffers, the ramping up of the DisneylandForward expansion, the first new entertainment offerings opening at OCVibe, a new owner to get to know in the Angels’ front office and an inventory of needed repairs that’s bound to affect the direction of the city-owned stadium’s future.
And, of course, there’s meeting the day-to-day needs of some 350,000 residents in Orange County’s most populous city.
Mayor Ashleigh Aitken is facing challengers Alfredo Rodriguez, a general manager at a local environmental services company, and physician Imran Sharief on the Nov. 3 ballot for the four-year term that could see the winner on the dais as the city faces key future decisions.
Whoever wins the term will help decide how the city spends an influx of more than $120 million annually to its general fund by 2028, when Anaheim expects to have paid off bonds taken out in the 1990s to expand the resort area.
The Anaheim City Council, including the winner of November’s mayoral election, will be deciding in the next few years how to allocate more than $120 million that is expected to start going into the city’s general fund after Anaheim pays off bonds taken out in the 1990s to improve and expand the resort area. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)
All three candidates, who were both interviewed and provided written answers to questions, advocated for a transparent decision-making process for spending those funds.
Rodriguez and Sharief said they’d first like to see the funds strengthen Anaheim’s reserves before bolstering core city services, such as cleaner neighborhoods, streets and infrastructure, parks and public safety.
Rodriguez added he’d “support strategic investments that improve economic opportunity, attract businesses, create local jobs, and strengthen our tax base without creating unnecessary permanent government programs.”
And Sharief said a slice of the funds should go toward further addressing homelessness. “We’re not thinking in the right direction. Being a doctor, I can address this,” he said.
“We need to start by getting them off the road, work to evaluate them and we need to have the right institution, a drug rehab or something like that,” Sharief said. “And once we have them in rehab, then we have to put them through some institution program where we can educate them with some sort of 6-month program where they learn a skill.”
Aitken said she’d like the funds invested into “improving the quality of life of residents,” naming “water mains, park maintenance, waste management, streetlights, trash cans, and street cleaning” as priorities, as well as the city’s homeless outreach programs.
She also called law enforcement and public safety “a priority” in city spending. The Anaheim Police Department is at a record staffing level, with 421 sworn officers.
“I have a plan in my next term to get us to 500,” Aitken said.
“Hiring and training officers year over year. I want people to feel safe walking around their neighborhood at night. I want people to be able to send their kids to school on a safe route,” she said, adding that the expanded capacity could shorten response times for residents’ day-to-day needs, but also help address Anaheim’s diverse regions, including the resort area or “high wildfire zone” hills community.
For the second council meeting in a row, Aitken addressed Tuesday night allegations that she directed a racial slur at her chief of staff and asked questions about her sexual orientation.
TimesOC published a story on Sept. 21 about a mediation letter sent to the city with the allegations, but neither the employee nor her attorney responded to requests for the letter or comment.
“These allegations are extremely serious, and they deserve to be investigated. I did not use the racial slur attributed to me, and I have always been a champion of the LGBTQ community,” Aitken said in a recent statement posted to her Facebook page.
The city is in the early stages of conducting an independent review — results could take months — and Aitken has said she intends to “cooperate truthfully.”
Aitken became Anaheim’s first female mayor when elected to her first term in 2022. In her first four years, she said she’s reached out to communities and businesses across Anaheim to “better understand their needs and interests.”
“To take just one example,” she added. “I worked to advance the revitalization of Brookhurst Street while preserving the historic character and cultural identity of Little Arabia, and brought a ‘Little Arabia Next Exit’ sign to our freeways in recognition of the cultural and economic impact of the community. I have stood by our LGBTQ+ community, women’s rights organizations and stood with our immigrant neighbors during unlawful raids. I was raised to stand up for the voiceless, and I hope that I have lived my communities’ values.”
Rodriguez said his experience building his career and now leading a company “has taught me how to manage budgets, solve problems, make difficult decisions and bring people together around a common goal.”
“My responsibility as mayor,” he said, “would be to hear different perspectives, find common ground where possible and make decisions based on what is best for Anaheim as a whole.”
“Public safety has to come first,” he said of the challenges facing Anaheim.
“That means supporting our police officers and firefighters, addressing homelessness with both compassion and accountability, and making sure residents feel safe in their homes, parks and business districts,” he said, adding he’d promote public trust in the Anaheim Police Department by holding frequent neighborhood visits where officers and residents “have a conversation and see how we can all do better.”
Rodriguez said he’d like to launch a new app that would build upon the existing “My Anaheim” app where residents can request city services and view upcoming city events.
“A resident is able to go on their app and see how the city is functioning based on policies that we created, new changes that we’re doing for the city, new projects that we’re doing, such as, say, street improvement,” Rodriguez said. “Residents could just go on their app and say, ‘Hey, this is their progress, this is where they’re at — 30%, 50%.’”
Being a doctor and a businessman has shaped the way he approaches leadership, Sharief said.
“As a doctor, you learn to listen before you try to solve a problem. You also learn that every person who walks through your door deserves the same care and respect, regardless of their background,” he said. “In business, you learn that good intentions are not enough. You have to make decisions, manage resources responsibly, and ultimately be accountable for results.”
To help address the city’s housing needs, including meeting state mandates for more homes, especially at lower income levels, both Rodriguez and Sharief suggested speeding up the permit process to allow housing to be built faster and said they supported new housing near jobs, transit hubs and major commercial areas, while Rodriguez criticized the state’s “one-size-fits-all approach to every city.”
Aitken named several milestones made during her first term.
“I led the effort to adopt Anaheim’s first inclusionary affordable housing program, which the City Council unanimously approved,” she said, mentioning the Anaheim Local Housing Trust Fund, motel conversions and new affordable housing communities around the city.
Addressing housing affordability, “which is a really big challenge in Anaheim,” Aitken said, requires thinking about “everyday affordability.”
“Do we have programs in place like we set up with Anaheim Contigo for people who’ve lost the breadwinner in their family and need rental assistance? Seniors that need a bit of a social safety net. Those are the things as a city that we can help with and should be focusing on,” she said. “And, of course, trying to address the long-term issues of building more affordable housing.”
The next four year-term will see the completion of some multi-billion-dollar projects, including first phases of the OCVibe development that’s revamping Honda Center and the area around it as an entertainment and residential neighborhood and the first wave of the DisneylandForward theme park buildout.
Anaheim’s mayor could inform how these regional destinations would work in tandem with each other and weigh in on transit options to get residents and tourists around.
Aitken said, “We need to invest in both short- and long-term transportation solutions,” proffering shuttles or buses as short-term solutions to remove cars and congestion from the city’s busiest areas. A long-term solution would “cheaply and easily” move both residents and visitors and “connect to our county and light rail systems that cross our city into other counties.”
Sharief and Rodriguez proposed balancing exploring new transit systems for the city’s largest destinations, while investing in ground-level improvements to traffic signal coordination and street infrastructure and existing transit systems.
Rodriguez added, “Technology should play a larger role in managing traffic during major events and peak tourism periods.”
Anaheim officials are expecting “at year’s end” an assessment of the 60-year-old Angel Stadium’s condition. Angel Stadium is the fourth-oldest MLB stadium, and assessment results could be a key point in future lease negotiations.
Fans arrive for a home Angels game against the New York Yankees, the first game after the announcement that Stan Kroenke, who also owns the LA Rams, is acquiring a controlling interest in the Angels. Seen at Angel Stadium in Anaheim on Tuesday, September 1, 2026. (Photo by Jeff Antenore, Orange County Register/SCNG)
And, for the first time in 23 years since Arte Moreno purchased the team, a new Angels owner in billionaire sports mogul and Los Angeles Rams owner Stan Kroenke is set to be in place early in the next mayoral term.
Sharief said he wants the team to stay in Anaheim and he’s also waiting for the results of the assessment to see what that future in town might look like.
“The assessment underway should give the city important information about its condition, remaining useful life and what rehabilitation may cost. I would not commit the city to a particular solution before seeing those facts,” he said.
“Once we have them, I would sit down with the Angels and work toward a long-term agreement that makes sense for both sides. I am open to different possibilities for the stadium and surrounding property,” he added. “Whatever we do, Anaheim taxpayers need to be protected. The process should be transparent, and residents should be able to understand the costs, benefits and obligations involved.”
Aitken said she supports Assembly Bill 2512, known as the “Home Run for Anaheim Act” and recently signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom, which would require the Los Angeles Angels to change the team’s name back to Anaheim Angels if the city gets an exemption from the Surplus Land Act — state law that prioritizes affordable housing — for developing around the stadium.
“They should be the Anaheim Angels,” Aitken said. “We need to break the curse.”
The ball club’s lease on the stadium runs through 2032 with the option to extend until 2038.
Aitken’s vision for Angel Stadium includes a new youth sports complex, she said. “I talk a lot about a youth sports complex because it would be a really unique opportunity for us to build on our tourism industry and be able to host traveling tournaments, whether they’re national or international baseball tournaments, soccer tournaments, softball.”
Rodriguez said he “would want to explore opportunities for the surrounding stadium property to generate additional economic activity, jobs and revenue while improving the overall area for residents and visitors,” adding, “The city and the Angels should approach this as partners, but Anaheim must negotiate from a position of strength.”
The mayor of Anaheim is paid up to $19,200 a year, plus a $50 stipend per council meeting they take part in, and they are eligible for health insurance through the city while in office.