Anaheim’s Lineup Gets PR Pop; Busch in Napa

The Tim Busch team has broken ground on a $65 million, 200-room hotel and timeshare in Napa Valley. Busch’s Irvine-based Pacific Hospitality Group is doing the hotel portion, while Shell Vacations Club is developing the timeshare. The hotel is slated to open in January 2006. It’s being called The Meritage,same name as the restaurant in Busch’s Doubletree Hotel Irvine Spectrum Waters & Faubel, the feisty Lake Forest PR firm that was instrumental in keeping “LAX South” out of the former El Toro Marine base, now will try to keep “L.A.” off of the Anaheim Angels. Anaheim recently retained Rutan & Tucker’s Michael Rubin to stop Angels owner Arte Moreno from changing the team’s name; the law firm in turn retained W & F.; “Arte’s a great businessman, a tremendous guy,” says Roger Faubel, “but a deal is a deal.” Memo to Arte: If you want to know how pesky W & F; can be, call former Seattle Mariners owner/El Toro airport advocate George Argyros Speaking of George A., he returned to his office,and a welcome-back party,at Arnel Development last week after three-plus years as U.S. ambassador to Spain. It was a tumultuous assignment,not because of Argyros’ fabled temper, which he appeared to hold in diplomatic check,but because of events: the March 11 Madrid bombings, the Socialists’ electoral defeat of U.S. ally (and Argyros friend) Jose Maria Aznar, and Spain’s withdrawal from the U.S.-led war coalition. For all of that, it appears Argyros still is most widely recognized for his 1980s baseball venture. A Factiva search pairing Argyros’ name with the following words produced these results: “ambassador” 462 matches, “el toro” 481, “investor” 278, “rich” 578, “developer” 1,012 and “Seattle Mariners” 1,906 The city-sponsored “Save the Anaheim Angels” Web site now has a companion, football fan Archie Brown’s bring-the-NFL-back-to-Anaheim site (www.nflreturns2oc.com). But Brown says it would be OK for an Anaheim football team to take the Los Angeles name “given this is the only team in the region. Besides, the NFL may finance 100% of the stadium cost, so they will feel very strongly about this issue” Inside baseball: When OC Fire Authority Capt. Steven Miller called his public information counterpart Maria Sabol recently, he opened with, “Is this the Los Angeles Anaheim Fire Department?” Another sign of thawing relations between the U.S. and Muammar Qadhafi: OC businessman Omar Turbi plays host to his native countryman Abuzed Dorda later this month. Dorda, a longtime Libyan minister and diplomat who until recently was his country’s U.N. ambassador, addresses the Los Angeles World Affairs Council Dec. 14 Placentia resident John Hollon has reduced a 192-mile round-trip commute to 36 miles. He’s switched editor jobs, going from our sister San Diego Business Journal to Workforce Management, a Crain Communications magazine in Irvine.