Yorba Linda City Manager Fired Amid Allegations : Government: A divided City Council votes 3-2 to fire Arthur C. Simonian, who is accused of paying himself and aides secret bonuses.

Yorba Linda’s city manager was fired Tuesday after a sharply divided City Council debated allegations that he paid himself and his top aides secret cash bonuses for several years.

The council voted 3-2 to dismiss Arthur C. Simonian, effective Dec. 9, and appointed Dan Miller, a private consultant, to fill the post temporarily while Simonian is on paid administrative leave.

“The bottom line is, this is the right thing to do,” Mayor John Gullixson said of the council’s decision after an all-day closed session. “When you find that these kinds of lines have been crossed, you have to take these hard steps and you have to clean house.”

But Councilman Henry W. Wedaa, who voted against the dismissal, called the action “highly destructive to the city.”

Simonian, 57, was Orange County’s longest-serving city manager, a position he had held since 1972. He has vehemently denied any wrongdoing. He was not at Tuesday’s council meeting and could not be reached for comment. His lawyer, Craig Scott, called the council’s move a violation of Simonian’s rights and said the ousted official will consider legal action.

“The majority of the City Council has breached Mr. Simonian’s employment contract and violated his rights under state law,” Scott said. “We will assess all of the remedies available to us and pursue them vigorously.”

Simonian has been on paid leave since Aug. 16, after the mayor and others said he had paid himself bonuses amounting to $14,000 a year and granted some of his staff members an extra 10% of their salaries.

After raising the issue in June, Gullixson demanded a detailed accounting of Simonian’s compensation package over the previous five years. “None of us were aware that Mr. Simonian was paying bonuses to his employees,” Gullixson said last month. “That information was deleted from our budgets.”

Simonian defended himself by saying the bonuses had been consistently approved by City Council members who never questioned Yorba Linda’s 12-year-old incentive program for top administrators.

“Where have they been?” he said in an interview shortly after being suspended. “They negotiated and approved my contract; they adopted the salary resolutions each year.”

Two City Council members have publicly supported that position. “We’re not talking about something that is off budget,” said Councilman Mark Schwing, who opposed the original vote to suspend Simonian. “All of the personnel costs, all of the salaries and all of the perks are in the budget approved by the City Council.”

In a letter to The Times, Councilman Wedaa agreed. “Arthur Simonian,” he wrote, “has served the city well and faithfully for 27 years. . . . Perhaps there was a failure on the part of a majority of the City Council to know the specific provisions of its own city budget, including salary resolutions upon which they all voted yes.”