Anaheim City Manager Jim Vanderpool is expected to face questions behind closed doors Tuesday about why he didn’t disclose sooner a retreat to Lake Havasu paid by the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce right before officials finalized the chamber-backed Angel Stadium sale in 2020.
Tuesday’s closed session meeting will take place at 2 p.m. at city hall, with the agenda listing an evaluation of the city manager followed by an item entitled “Public Employee Resignation/Release/Dismissal.”
The expected private questioning by city council members comes after two recent TimesOC articles, with the latest reporting Vanderpool didn’t disclose the chamber paid trip which has since sparked renewed calls to fire him years after a city hall corruption scandal broke.
[Read: Is Anaheim’s Controversial City Manager Going to Get Fired?]
It also comes years after JL Group investigators in the wake of the scandal alleged Vanderpool was on board with a plan by Disneyland Resort interests to keep as much as $100 million a year out of the city’s general fund once the 1997 resort bonds are paid off.
Those investigators cited Vanderpool almost 100 times in their 2023 corruption probe report, but Tuesday’s meeting will mark the first time he faces any real official questioning from elected leaders related to the scandal that continues to rock the city hall he helms.
Mayor Ashleigh Aitken, who requested the closed session meeting this month, said the city manager did not disclose attending the Havasu retreat until he anticipated news articles to be published about it after new chamber of commerce leaders released emails to the press.
“The City Managers Havasu lobbyist retreat was not disclosed to the JL Report investigators, and only disclosed to me on December 23 in anticipation of a news report. Our Chamber is more interested in transparency than select city staff, which feels like I’m living in the upside-down,” she wrote in a text message earlier this month.
Last week, Aitken said transparency and maintaining the public trust need to be a priority in their decisions.
“There is a process that needs to fairly play out. We are meeting in closed session under the Brown Act with our city attorney and ethics officer to ask questions and address any concerns,” she said in a Thursday text message.
The rest of the city council did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.
Vanderpool did not respond to requests for comment. His statement of economic interest provided by the city earlier this month shows he did not disclose the trip.
Mock Meeting, the Havasu Retreat Followed by a Stadium Sale
An email provided to the Voice of OC and other news outlets by the new leadership at the Chamber of Commerce shows the “Havasu retreat,” as dubbed in the email subject line, was scheduled for Sept. 24 to Sept. 29, 2020.
Vanderpool was joined on the guest list by chamber leaders, consultants and other proponents of the land sale at the resort.
The trip ended the same day the city council was scheduled to vote on the stadium sale – which was ultimately approved in the early hours of Sept. 30 but would eventually implode because of an FBI corruption probe.
The Havasu trip isn’t the only thing reigniting calls for Vanderpool’s resignation.
A planned mock city council meeting to rehearse selling Angel Stadium was scheduled on Sept. 21 – three days before proponents of the sale gathered at Lake Havasu.
This month, TimesOC reported that the mock council meeting – first described in former Mayor Harry Sidhu’s federal plea deal — potentially included Vanderpool, City Spokesman Mike Lyster, Angels executives and former chamber leaders who later went to Havasu.
Vanderpool and Lyster denied attending or being part of the preparation of the meeting through another city spokesperson earlier this month.
The Chamber’s release of emails comes after new leadership last year announced they would be rebranding and staying out of politics.
Dara Maleki, the CEO of the revamped chamber, said transparency matters and there are still a lot of unanswered questions from the corruption scandal.
“As an organization that represents a large piece of our community – the business community, we have a responsibility to the public to be transparent and honest, and I think we expect the same from our council members and from our city,” he said in a Thursday phone interview.
“We can’t move forward until we’re able to clear up any open items from our past.”
In a Dec. 23 email to Aitken and the rest of the city council, Vanderpool said Todd Ament – a key figure in the corruption scandal – invited him to Lake Havasu and rejected the characterization of the trip as a retreat.
“It was a social gathering, not a ‘retreat,’ as may be incorrectly characterized. I did not engage with any subsequent social or business travel with Todd Ament,” he wrote.
Maleki said the timeline of the mock meeting, the Havasu gathering and the stadium sale speak for itself and that either the trip was an inappropriate business expense used for a vacation or business was discussed.
“Ultimately, I don’t know which one looks better,” he said, noting that the previous chamber leadership could have lied to the people invited. “The timing was incredibly convenient.”
Maleki added it’s important to bring the trip to light.
“I think it’s important to let the people know and then at the end of the day, let’s find the move forward here,” he said. “I don’t believe that Jim is a bad person. We just want what’s best for our city, and people need to take responsibility for actions and disclose and be transparent.”
Jeanine Robbins, a longtime resident and advocate for the homeless, said the timing of the trip is indicative that business was discussed.
“Of course, there was business discussed. Why would he have been there with the most powerful lobbyists in the city?” she said. “I feel that Jim Vanderpool was hired to be a yes man.”
In another email to city council members on Jan. 11, Vanderpool said he didn’t know that the chamber paid for the rental unit he stayed in, he only stayed two nights and that the food and beverages he brought would have offset the need to report the stay.
He also noted the city’s ethics officer confirmed that he didn’t have to disclose the trip, but that he could amend his gift disclosure form from 2020 to include it.
“I am not running from any of this. I stand firm that the narrative in the article is baseless,” he wrote about the TimesOC article, after noting he sent an email responding to the TimesOC article to other Anaheim business interests including the Angels.
Sounding Off on a ‘Dirty Duck’
Jose Moreno, a former city councilman and critic of the canned stadium deal, described Vanderpool as unethical, manipulative, and a “good soldier” for special interests who would talk officials out of scheduling initiatives to be debated publicly.
“A lot of things that are good for transparency and ethics and for the city as a whole have never seen the light of day, in part because the City Manager Jim Vanderpool talks council members out of it with the backing of the special interests that often fund the campaigns of these council members,” he said in a Wednesday phone interview.
Kari Bouffard, a former city purchasing agent for Anaheim and founder of the Coalition for Local Ethics Accountability and Reform, said the mayor’s inquiry is heading in the right direction.
“The City of Anaheim has some institutional issues, and I don’t believe that these omissions are isolated mistakes,” she said at a Thursday phone interview.
Last year, Bouffard filed a tort claim alleging she was wrongfully fired from the city for exposing fraud, refusing to take part in unlawful contracting practices, engaging in protected whistleblower activity and reporting sexual assault and harassment.
“I raised issues related to procurement integrity and governance, which was my professional responsibility to do so,” she said when asked about Vanderpool.
“I don’t feel that those issues were paid attention to. I don’t think that they were given the importance that was required to operate appropriately as a municipality.”
Mike Robbins – a resident, advocate for homeless people and Jeanine’s husband – said the city manager has allowed corruption to thrive in Anaheim.
“Jim Vanderpool has facilitated a consortium of corruption at City Hall, and as a person in charge, he has to take some credit,” he said in a Thursday interview.
Jeanine Robbins said the questioning of Vanderpool should happen in the public eye and the mayor’s request is just a show for the public.
She also said it’s time for the city to part ways with Vanderpool and compared city hall to a haunted house.
“He should have gone years ago,” Jeanine said. “You’re in a haunted house. You never know what lies behind each door and each door you open, there is just more corruption.”
Marc Herbert, a local government watchdog who runs a blog , wonders why the council is questioning Vanderpool now after not doing so in the wake of the JL Group report and a host of news articles that came out on the city manager in the years following the scandal.
“There was never a follow up by the city to the JL report. We never had a public hearing. We never had a workshop. That was it. They spent a million dollars, and it was swept under the rug,” Herbert said in a Thursday phone interview.
“This is what happens when the public’s not invited in.”
Moreno said he was happy with the mayor’s request, but the council should have asked these questions after the release of the 2023 JL group report, which also alleged City Spokesman Mike Lyster failed to turn over public records on his private phone for them to review.
“The fact that the city manager is still there and the (Public Information Officer) is still there, suggests to me that perhaps the only way that the mayor and the city council will actually act on the ethical and legal infractions by the city’s administrative leadership is if the media is going to write a story,” he said.
Lyster, who is also facing calls to resign, refused to answer questions on the mock council meeting and why he didn’t hand over the records on his phone to investigators.
“This has already been covered at length, and it’s questionable why it’s coming up again now. I won’t dignify this with anything further,” he said in a Thursday email.
Meanwhile, Anaheim officials are starting to mull over the future of Angel Stadium as another land sale could be on the horizon and as they await the results of an assessment of the ball park’s condition.
Moreno said it’s not smart to keep Vanderpool and Lyster as Angel Stadium comes back into play.
“For the city to be on the cusp of reengaging in negotiations for our stadium, for our land, it would not be wise to continue with this city manager and, frankly, this public information officer, because they both have been found to be manipulative of the facts and to operate unethically,” he wrote.
Herbert said Vanderpool should be fired ahead of any future stadium negotiations.
“It would be important to send a message that it’s going to be done differently this time and maybe firing Vanderpool would be a good step,” he said. “I’m worried that he’s going to get a nice package with a non disclosure agreement. I’m worried about the process of finding a new one.”
Moreno said Vanderpool only informed the council about the Havasu trip because of an expected news article – something he described as a pattern of behavior by the manager.
He also said the stadium sale was clearly an orchestrated and calculated process and Vanderpool should have at least informed officials back in September 2020 amid the public scrutiny of the deal at the time.
“Any gatherings that they were having were not simply because they enjoyed each other’s company. It’s because they all had much to profit from and benefit from,” he said.
“If it acts like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, it’s a duck and what we have here in the city of Anaheim and our city manager is a dirty duck.”
Editor’s note: Anaheim Mayor Ashleigh Aitken’s father, Wylie Aitken, chairs Voice of OC’s board of directors.
Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @ElattarHosam.