Just days after he was questioned by the City Council in a closed session, Anaheim City Manager Jim Vanderpool said he intends to move up plans to retire this year.
While the contents of the closed session discussion last week are not public, it followed news reports of his attendance at an Anaheim Chamber of Commerce-funded retreat that was not disclosed as a gift in his 2020 annual statement of economic interests. Mayor Ashleigh Aitken called for the closed session questioning, from which Vanderpool emerged last week with two council members giving his performance in the city public praise.
An item for a “public employee resignation” appears on the city’s Tuesday, Feb. 3, closed session agenda. City officials confirmed it was Vanderpool who “sought and placed this item on the agenda.”
As Anaheim’s top administrative executive, Vanderpool oversees the day-to-day operations of Orange County’s most populous city and an annual budget of more than $2 billion; he’s seen the city through multibillion-dollar development agreements such as the OCVibe entertainment and residential district that is under construction at Honda Center and the DisneylandForward theme park expansion.
“I came to Anaheim at a challenging time to provide continuity and stability for a great city. I’m proud to have done that over the past five years, helping Anaheim recover from the pandemic and move forward with transformative policies and projects, the benefits of which span generations,” Vanderpool said in a statement.
“With more than 30 years in city government, I had already planned to retire this year. I’m moving that up now and seeking nothing but a smooth, positive transition for Anaheim. I do so proud of what we’ve accomplished together and want Anaheim to keep focused on what’s important for neighborhoods, businesses and visitors and to realize a great future ahead,” he said.
Vanderpool’s decision to step down comes in the wake of a string of headlines about his attending in September 2020 the retreat to Lake Havasu shortly after he joined the city.
The guest list included some of the city’s most influential, including then-chamber CEO Todd Ament, from whom Vanderpool told councilmembers in a Dec. 23 email he received the invitation.
Federal prosecutors would later allege Ament was a leader among a group of business and political allies who exerted sway at City Hall; and Ament was a key player in the scandal involving the now-dissolved Angel Stadium sale — approved by city council members a day after the Havasu retreat — wearing a wire for the FBI to record conversations with then-Mayor Harry Sidhu. The mayor was recorded saying he hoped to elicit from the sale a $1 million in campaign contributions from the Angels.
Vanderpool, in the Dec. 23 email he sent to councilmembers, said he “did not engage with any subsequent social or business travel with Todd Ament.”
In a Jan. 11 email to councilmembers, Vanderpool said he didn’t know that the chamber paid for his lodging in a mobile home unit he shared with then-chamber Vice President Laura Cunningham and her husband, which he estimated would have cost $190 over his two-night stay.
“Food and beverage provided by me would have offset any reporting requirement,” he said, adding he “confirmed this theory” with Ethics Officer Artin Berjikly.
Following the closed session with the city manager last week, Aitken said she wanted to put on a future agenda “a request to work with our ethics officer, to look at these potential allegations and prepare a report that can be disclosed to the public.”
Vanderpool left the Buena Park city manager position in 2020 to assume his role in Anaheim after his predecessor, Chirs Zapata, was dismissed by the Sidhu-led council.
Before Vanderpool became the city’s top executive — a rank for which he’s paid more than $386,000 annually — there was an arguably high turnover in the position, with six different city managers cycling through and serving an average of two years between 2009 and 2020.
Per his employment agreement, Vanderpool could receive severance payment “equal to six months of (his) monthly base salary.”
But “it is our understanding there are no financial aspects to it,” city spokesperson Mike Lyster said. “Beyond that, we want to respect that this is a closed session, personnel item.”
Councilmember Rubalcava, who spoke in support of Vanderpool at the city’s last council meeting, said she’s “praying that he’s going to change his mind.”
“I think that he’s just kind of over it, which is disappointing,” she said. “I really, truly believe he’s done a great job for our city. It’s a very sad turn of events.”