{"id":149163,"date":"2026-01-25T18:23:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T18:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/149163\/"},"modified":"2026-01-25T18:23:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T18:23:07","slug":"anaheim-officials-set-to-question-city-manager-about-unreported-havasu-retreat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/149163\/","title":{"rendered":"Anaheim officials set to question city manager about unreported Havasu retreat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Jim Vanderpool, Anaheim\u2019s city manager for the past five years, is expected to face tough questioning from councilmembers about a Lake Havasu retreat he attended as a guest of the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce in 2020, but did not disclose as required.
A confidential city manager performance evaluation is scheduled for Tuesday\u2019s Anaheim City Council meeting. A closed session discussion about a public employee\u2019s potential departure also appears on the agenda.
The agenda items follow an investigation<\/a> earlier this month by TimesOC that reported the local chamber paid for lakeside lodging during the September retreat he participated in more than five years ago.
Vanderpool did not list the travel payment as a gift in his 2020 statement of economic interests.<\/p>\n

Documents about the retreat, which included a birthday celebration for former chamber chief executive Todd Ament<\/a>, listed lobbyists, chamber officials and consultants as invitees.
During a Jan. 13 council meeting, Anaheim Mayor Ashleigh Aitken referenced reporting about the retreat and called for Tuesday\u2019s closed session discussion to question Vanderpool about it with City Atty. Rob Fabela and ethics officer Artin Berjikly on hand.
\u201cEarning and keeping the public trust is [paramount] to both me \u2026 and my colleagues on this dais,\u201d Aitken said. \u201cI would like for us to have the opportunity to ask questions of our city manager and let this process play out.\u201d
Vanderpool did not address the Havasu retreat at the council meeting.
He did send an email to Aitken and other members of the council in December, in which he claimed the trip was a \u201csocial gathering,\u201d one that political consultant Jeff Flint and former Anaheim Mayor Harry Sidhu were invited to, but did not attend.
\u201cYou have my 100% support,\u201d Councilmember Natalie Meeks wrote back in an email obtained by TimesOC. \u201cYou are doing amazing work for Anaheim.\u201d
\u201cI can\u2019t believe the story is going to surface five years later. Ridiculous,\u201d Vanderpool responded. \u201cI\u2019m very concerned that certain people are trying to sabotage any Angels deal. It won\u2019t stop me.\u201d (The City Council has authorized city staff to start preliminary discussions with state housing officials regarding a surplus land law that governs the property around Angel Stadium.)
Anaheim spokesperson Mike Lyster previously dismissed the Havasu accommodations provided to Vanderpool as a \u201cnon-issue\u201d that the city manager did not need to report.
\u201cIf a former chamber executive turned around and later billed the organization for any cost \u2014 unbeknownst to Vanderpool \u2014 then that\u2019s on them and a matter for the current chamber administration,\u201d Lyster said.
Dates and memos on the chamber checks, including those marked for a mobile home unit assigned to Vanderpool, show that Havasu rentals were secured after his appointment as city manager that summer and weeks before the retreat.<\/p>\n

During the Jan. 13 council meeting, several residents called on the panel to terminate Vanderpool\u2019s employment.
\u201cIf the city manager doesn\u2019t understand the concept behind reporting gifts, then how can he manage the council and the city?\u201d said Jeanine Robbins, a resident and former council candidate. \u201cHe needs to resign immediately, or be fired.\u201d
Aitken, who touted a series of reforms passed since she won election as mayor in 2022, pleaded for patience from those in the audience and said she hoped to have an answer soon.
A Fair Political Practices Commission fact sheet<\/a> on gift reporting from 2024 details rules for travel payments.
\u201cGenerally, when an official receives a payment for their travel, that payment is a reportable gift or income,\u201d it states.
Travel payments, advances or reimbursements for lodging are considered gifts with few exceptions under the Political Reform Act.
The FPPC has a general five-year statute of limitations from the date of the violation to commence an investigation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jim Vanderpool, Anaheim\u2019s city manager for the past five years, is expected to face tough questioning from councilmembers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149164,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[73949,163,165,164,73950,27198,32453,24714,7217,50872,73952,18346,73947,73951,73946,73948,72],"class_list":["post-149163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-aitken","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-anaheim-official","tag-city-manager","tag-council-meeting","tag-gift","tag-jan","tag-jim-vanderpool","tag-lakeside-lodging","tag-reporting","tag-september-retreat","tag-several-resident","tag-travel-payment","tag-unreported-havasu-retreat","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}