D.A. Clears Anaheim Officials of Collusion

The district attorney’s office said Thursday that there was no evidence that three Anaheim City Council members colluded secretly in March to appoint a new city manager.

After an investigation into allegations made by Anaheim Mayor Fred Hunter and Councilman William D. Ehrle, the district attorney’s office concluded that council members Tom Daly, Miriam Kaywood and Irv Pickler did not meet secretly when they decided to hire their choice for city manager over the candidate Hunter and Ehrle preferred.

A secret meeting would have been a violation of the Ralph M. Brown Act, which prohibits more than two members of a governing body to meet in private to discuss public business.

“I’m really happy it came right now,” said Pickler, who is challenging Hunter for the mayor’s seat in the Nov. 6 election. “I figured it would come out that way. In my mind, I knew there was no wrong.”

The charges in March came within an hour of the council’s decision to promote longtime staff member James Ruth rather than hire the controversial city manager from Toledo, Philip Hawkey, whom Hunter and Ehrle had preferred.

Hunter and Ehrle contended that all five council members had already agreed to hire Hawkey, but that their three colleagues met secretly later in the week to switch their support to Ruth.

Hunter and Ehrle further alleged that the three also conspired to force outgoing City Manager Bob Simpson, 60, to resign because of his age. Simpson, who retired in May, is running for the City Council in the Nov. 6 election.

In a prepared statement Thursday, Hunter said: “There are still unanswered questions with regard to age discrimination, fair employment and possible Anaheim ethics code violations--matters over which the D.A.’s office has no jurisdiction.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Kenneth Chinn, who investigated the allegations, said there was no evidence to conclude the Brown Act had been violated by the three council members.

“There were instances that certainly, in my mind, justified the investigation,” Chinn said. “It was certainly something that needed to be taken a look at.”

Kaywood, who is also up for reelection, called the allegations “a political piece of nonsense.”

“Nothing occurred,” she said. “There was nothing to investigate. I find it sad that the public’s money and the time of the district attorney’s office was wasted on a totally frivolous complaint that those two men (Hunter and Ehrle) knew they were making.”

Ehrle said the questions of age discrimination and ethics violations remain. He had asked the county grand jury to investigate those charges, but it never undertook that request. “Those issues still have to be resolved. I do not think the issue is dead,” he said.