Performance Review for Anaheim City Manager Vanderpool This Afternoon.

James Vanderpool, the Anaheim City Manager since the Sidhu Cabal hired him in Sept. 2020 after firing honest CM Chris Zapata, is up for his performance review right before today’s Council meeting (Tuesday Sept. 26, at 4pm.) Anyone can come and speak at that hour.

It’s awkward for us to join the chorus of “Fire Vanderpool” or “Resign Vanderpool” because he’s been helpful to me and Donna on several issues (funny how that works), especially, along with Councilman Faessel, bringing BE WELL to Anaheim, an unalloyed good thing. And he’s been accessible and easy to work with, especially compared to that useless 2015-2017 lump of lard Paul Emery, or his predecessor Marci Edwards. Plus, he seems to have fierce support from the “Circle the Wagons ‘Round the Chameleon” Council majority.

But his critics have a damning inventory of GOOD POINTS some of which I’ll list below. In short, he was the NUMBER ONE ENABLER of all the corruption and criminality that went on under Mayor Sidhu and his two top cronies Todd Ament and Jeff Flint.

And it’s worth remembering that Chris Zapata was fired by the loyal Sidhu majority (including Faessel and the allegedly reluctant Brandman) on the vague grounds that They “Wanted to Go in a New Direction.” What had Chris done? Never any actual insubordination, but he did express (when asked) several opinions that went against the Cabal’s grain, and which in retrospect were 100% right:

• We shouldn’t have GIVEN $6.5 million of federal COVID money, no strings attached, to Visit Anaheim.
• We could have got a much better deal on the Stadium in many ways.
• And he resisted having his signing authority raised from $50k to $200k because he feared Dirty Sidhu would then do an end run around Council and pressure him to use that authority inappropriately.

We sure miss Chris! And when the Sidhu Gang fired him “to go in a new direction” we had to pay through the nose for “F–king with the wrong Mexican.”

Well, if there was ever a time the Anaheim Council needed “to go in a new direction” you’d think that is RIGHT NOW. Even if the Council doesn’t let Jim go today, which seems a heavy lift, they SHOULD have a HUGE set of REAL CONCERNS with things he’s done these three years, and some SERIOUS-ASS QUESTIONS and DEMANDS:

• First and last, we have a “Strong City Manager” city, and Vanderpool presided over the lawlessness and corruption of 2020-22 Anaheim. Seppuku would be a bit much, but what happened to “The Buck Stops Here?”

• Jim seems to have been the point man “running interference” for Sidhu’s favored Developers, particularly the “Scofflaw” duo of Shopoff and Greenlaw, the omnipotent campaign donors, allowing them to bypass all competition and get away with building little-to-no affordable housing. When these developers weren’t getting the treatment they wanted from our worthy housing staff, they’d say, “We’re gonna go talk to Jim.” Lack of affordable housing in Anaheim? Has a lot to do with Vanderpool’s Scofflaw-friendly advocacy.

• Lisa Monteiro, our former Audit specialist, left the city in frustration soon after John Woodhead quit and Zapata was fired, complaining that “Chris Zapata was our last City Manager who believed in audits.” She was saying that Vanderpool does NOT believe in audits. Is this true, and why would our City Auditor say that otherwise?

• Our friends have compiled, from the JL Report, this long list of unreported meetings Vanderpool took with scofflaw lobbyists, and he also frequently allowed LOBBYISTS to write “staff reports” themselves.

• Former Councilman Jose Moreno, who worked with Jim for 16 long months, characterizes him as “more political than the politicians. He really is. He counts votes, he shapes staff reports, he puts fear into councilmembers that if they don’t vote this way there will be consequences. VERY opposite from how Chris Zapata operated. So, that’s something that worries me, is, to what extent this new Council, many of whom are not experienced in government, to what extent are they depending on a City Manager and a Public Information Officer [Mike Lyster] to spin the city’s narrative…” . .

• Maybe not enough reasons to let Jim go yet, but how about some things the Council should demand from him this afternoon? How about…

Open the Phones!

The JL Group did the best they could investigating Anaheim’s corruption, the best they could given their lack of subpoena power, and the fact that they were stonewalled and denied documents by the Chamber, Visit Anaheim, Disney, and the Angels.

Not only that, the JL Group would have learned a lot more if they’d been able to get into the locked phones of Harry Sidhu and Trevor O’Neil. The Anaheim Police had the technology to open those phones, but wouldn’t do it because there was not a criminal investigation to justify that. But the APD operates under the authority of Mr. Vanderpool, and HE could order them to open those phones. If I was the Council this afternoon, I would instruct him to do that, if he wants to show that he stands for transparency and accountability.

The JL Report is far from complete. As Mayor Tait said at a recent OCCORD corruption forum, “The stuff they wrote about was like picking on a jaywalker when there’s a bank robbery going on.”

The Dec. 2020 “Retreat”

It’s thanks to the FBI we know about the secret Council/Chamber “Retreat” of December 2020, which Jim (in his third month on the job) attended with the disgraced, prison-bound Mayor Sidhu, and Councilmembers Faessel and O’Neil. It probably wasn’t illegal for Jim to attend such a meeting, even run as it was by disgraced, prison-bound Todd Ament, soon-to-be-indicted power broker Jeff Flint, and Teflon Disney lobbyist Carrie Nocella (right).

But it is thanks to the JL Report (and actually Vanderpool, Faessel and O’Neil, all of whom spoke to JL) that we know what was discussed there. And the biggest topic was the expected LPMR funds – the additional $100 million PER YEAR in revenue Anaheim will be expecting in a few years when we finish paying off the bonds we took out to help out Disney in the 90’s.

And the plan as dictated by the Cabal masters was Ament’s “30-30-30-10“ formula, recalled slightly differently by each of the attendees, but always keeping that huge revenue OUT OF THE HANDS OF THE DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED COUNCIL (which might not always have members the Cabal could control) and with a big chunk going right to the Chamber.

You’d think just THAT would set off alarm bells with ANY new City Manager. Jim of course tells JL the story in a way that makes him sound good, and maybe it is true; he says that he rushed to his deputy CM Greg Garcia afterward:

“I got back from the retreat and told Greg – he got so pissed at me because I’m the new guy telling him how to run his city, right? I told him, ‘the Chamber’s filling a void. I’m getting better information than I’m getting from our Finance Department [under Debbie Moreno], and it’s a problem.’ And so, he was defending, and I said, ‘I’m telling you, they’re filling a void, and as long as the Chamber is existing, they’re doing what we should be doing. And that’s why they are who they are.'”

Greg Garcia and Sergio Ramirez both independently confirmed something like this to JL, that Jim was concerned our Economic Development Department was languishing after the departure of Woodhead, that the Chamber was expanding to fill that void, and that we should deal with that shortcoming in-house. Well, if I were the Council this afternoon, I would find that very interesting, and want to know all about what Jim has done and accomplished in that regard over these intervening three years.

Again, though, if there was any time that Anaheim needed “to go in a new direction,” it is now. Last time I talked to Chris Zapata he sounded tanned, rested, and working in Sausalito. And flattered to know there is a call to “Bring Back Zapata.” And didn’t say no. (What he said, jokingly quoting his namesake, was “I’d rather die on my feet than live on my knees!”)

Whether it means losing Vanderpool, or having him “chameleon” himself into an honest, reformist City Manager for these times, Anaheim HAS to go in a new direction, now.

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