Yorba Linda’s Nagging Questions

The plot thickened in Yorba Linda last week with open warfare on the City Council. The mayor called for the recall of two council members over a budgetary dispute. The Internal Revenue Service has begun looking into executive bonuses. The city engineer has demanded that the city give back about $25,000 in benefits that were revoked. All this is arising from city efforts to get to the bottom of a mess that clearly got away, even as affected managers assert they did nothing wrong.

The city must come up with a credible new way of overseeing managerial compensation, the issue at the heart of the dispute. A bare majority of the council dismissed former City Manager Arthur C. Simonian over this. But the public has to wonder: What about his troubling assertion that compensation was approved consistently by the council and never questioned? The fact that two members of the council supported Simonian indicates that there is a question whether council members fully understood or agreed on the contract terms of the county’s longest-serving city manager.

A team of special accountants and attorneys has been investigating allegations that Simonian had been giving out generous cash bonuses to his top aides for years. Simonian has denied the charges of wrongdoing, saying that the bonuses were doled out according to city policy, and he is suing the city for wrongful dismissal.

City Engineer and Public Works Director Roy Stephenson wants back about $25,000 in benefits revoked early last month. At issue is whether the council ever authorized those benefits. A month ago, the council voted to halt payment for certain benefits and said it would decide by the end of the year whether to get rid of the controversial bonus program entirely. It clearly needs a fresh start.