In a stunning turn of events, Anaheim City Manager Jim Vanderpool has resigned a week after he emerged from a controversial closed session meeting with his job intact.
Vanderpool, who has served as city manager since September 2020, stepped down on Tuesday during confidential deliberations he requested over the weekend.
The Anaheim City Council unanimously accepted Vanderpool’s resignation, which took effect after closed session concluded.
“With more than 30 years in city government, I had already planned to retire this year,” Vanderpool claimed in a statement prior to his resignation. “I’m moving that up now and seeking nothing but a smooth, positive transition for Anaheim.”
But Vanderpool’s sudden resignation comes amid an ongoing investigation by the Fair Political Practices Commission into a Lake Havasu retreat he did not disclose in 2020.
It also marks another controversial chapter in Anaheim where cozy relationships between city officials and power brokers have been scrutinized in the wake of an FBI political corruption probe that surfaced nearly four years ago and tanked a deal to sell Angel Stadium and the land around it to a company controlled by team owner Arte Moreno.
First reported by TimesOC, Vanderpool attended the Havasu retreat with former Anaheim Chamber of Commerce chief executive Todd Ament, a key figure in the FBI probe now awaiting sentencing, and other invited guests, including an ex-Anaheim councilmember and consultants, just weeks into his job as city manager.
The trip also took place in between mock council meetings to rehearse the Angel Stadium deal.
Financial records showed the chamber paid for the lakeside mobile home rental assigned to Vanderpool and his husband during the weekend stay.
Vanderpool did not report the accommodations as a gift in his annual statement of financial interests.
On Jan. 22, the FPPC sent Vanderpool a letter informing him the agency had initiated an investigation into “potential violations of the economic interests disclosure provisions of the Political Reform Act.”
Vanderpool during an Anaheim City Council meeting in 2022.
(James Carbone)
Vanderpool’s exit also arrives as Mayor Ashleigh Aitken has called for a probe of an alleged leak of the closed session vote on his job.
Aitken previously cited TimesOC reporting in putting a confidential discussion of the retreat on the agenda of the Jan. 27 council meeting.
Councilmembers also considered Vanderpool’s possible termination during the closed session meeting.
City Atty. Rob Fabela had no actions to report out of that closed session.
But as the City Council transitioned from the closed session into their regular open meeting, the Log Cabin Republicans of Orange County, an LGBT inclusive group, made a post on Facebook that appeared to divulge details of an alleged 6-1 closed-session vote.
“Jim Vanderpool, a longtime and respected public servant, was targeted for purely political reasons,” the post read. “Even [Aitken’s] fellow Democrats on the council joined the two Republican members and rebuked the mayor.”
The Log Cabin Republicans of OC did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
On Tuesday, Councilmember Natalie Rubalcava continued to praise Vanderpool’s leadership after his resignation.
“Despite difficult circumstances over the past six years, he delivered for our city and served as a steady source of stability for our employees and our residents alike,” she said. “While this was not the outcome many of us on this dais had hoped for, the foundation he helped set for our city will remain.”
Other members of the council also thanked Vanderpool for his public service.
Ethics memo released
Aitken cited state and local investigative efforts in calling off internal probes into the retreat and leak, but continued a push for more transparency. She sought to make public a memo from the city’s ethics officer on the Havasu retreat that councilmembers took into closed session.
“Maybe we can have a broader policy discussion at a later date about having ethics opinions online for our public to see when we ask our ethics officer to provide guidance,” Aitken said. “That’s a larger question than what we’re dealing with today, but, as it pertains to, specifically, the Jan. 26 memo … it’s something we should disclose to the public as well as the investigating authorities.”
Rubalcava initially pushed back and called the proposed waiver of attorney-client privilege a “dangerous” precedent and “theater.”
A previous council waived privilege in making an independent corruption report public in 2023.
After some debate, councilmembers voted 6-1 to release the memo, with Councilmember Norma Campos Kurtz opposed.
Prepared by the city’s ethics officer, Artin Berjikly, the memo considered the retreat’s potential gift value “including possible food and beverages and use of boat.”
In a Jan. 11 email to council, Vanderpool claimed his two-night stay equaled $190, but the memo doubled the rate assessed by including his spouse under FPPC’s gift reporting guidelines.
Mike Lyster, a city spokesperson, previously told TimesOC that Vanderpool’s own food and beverage purchases during the retreat offset accommodations, which was a “non-issue” since city business was not discussed.
Berjikly considered nearly $400 in grocery purchases “at or around the time” of the retreat, but did not make a formal calculation.
If the value of retreat accommodations was $50 or more after offsetting costs, Vanderpool still had the duty to report.
Conflict of interest laws may also come into play. With Vanderpool signing off on it, Anaheim entered an agreement with the chamber for a “Shop Dine Local” program right after the retreat ended. Vanderpool did not recuse himself, which would have been required if the gift value exceeded $500.
The memo’s private guidance to councilmembers also appeared to contradict what Lyster claimed about the Havasu retreat publicly.
“Whether or not the resort stay was related to city business has no bearing on gift valuation.”