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Tonight the Mission Viejo City Council will consider a new employment contract for Assistant City Manager Keith Rattay that would be the envy of most private sector workers. According to the terms of the proposed contract (http://dms.cityofmissionviejo.org/sirepub/mtgviewer.aspx?meetid=1755&doctype=AGENDA), Mr. Rattay will get NINE MONTHS pay for doing NOTHING regardless of whether he quits or the City simply fails to renew his contract. As a mid-level manager, Mr. Rattay’s proposed contract will pay him a hefty $162,178 yearly salary, a $450/month car allowance, $7,500 extra “just cause” (technically “deferred compensation”) ON TOP OF the full PERS pension contribution that is worth $40,000-$80,000 per year depending on which actuary you talk to. Making matters even worse, the internally inconsistent proposed contract declares that Mr. Rattay is “at will” on the one hand (meaning he can be terminated at any time for any reason) and then later limits the grounds for termination to stealing money from the City or being convicted of a felony. Doing a terrible job is evidently insufficient grounds for termination at the City of Mission Viejo.
Times are tough economically everywhere . .. . evidently with the exception of the City of Mission Viejo which awarded City Manager Dennis Wilberg a similar contract recently. These bloated public employee contracts are generally justified on the grounds that “this is what it takes to keep good people” a logic that is simply untrue, especially in these tough economic times. I simply dare Mr. Rattay to show how he would obtain anything approaching this kind of compensation if he were to take his highly paid act into the private sector today. Good luck with that.
I encourage Mission Viejo residents to attend tonight’s City Council meeting to persuade the council majority consisting of Frank Ury, Trish Kelly and Mayor Dave Leckness to join council members Cathy Schlicht and Rhonda Reardon in opposing the ridiculously fat contract from being thrown onto the backs of taxpayers.
I for one believe this is too cheap to ask someone to serve at the pleasure of the calibre of people who seek and win elective office. Like trying to manage a mine-field with RPG’s fired by electeds or their cronies likely to be lobbed in at any moment.
Geoff. Your stealing my speech for tonight.
FYI the MV city manager has a renewable Contract with our city council. They have the power to hire and fire the city manager and/or the city attorney. Period.
The assistant City Manager is selected by, and reports directly to, CM Dennis Wilberg. Earlier this year our former assistant city manager retired. I will share his contract and 2 amendments tonight in which the causes of termination were not watered down.
In Irwins Contract misconduct included: “dishonest, fraud, self-dealing, or willful misconduct committed in the performance of (his) responsibilites under this agreement” etc. All of these valid Termination and Severance related conditions are to be removed from Keith Rattay’s proposed agreement.
Why are we exempting Keith Rattay potential misconduct provisions when we didn’t change the boilerplate document for Irwin Bornstein?
Is the city manager aware of any past current or future transgressions that might fall under this section of the agreement?
The issue relates to his questionable conduct driving this limited language as well as nine months of salary.
We . . choke, cough . . agree.
Geoff. An update as I just got home from the city council meeting.
As the assistant City Manager contract was on the Routine Consent calendar, and Whereas Frank Ury went first to pull items, he ignored this major issue for discussion. When finally called to speak I pointed out that significant oversight whereby he was OK with the terms and conditions of the draft agreement.
I also told Frank, Trish and Dave of this post and your request for them to vote NO. Frank admitted reading the Juice post pointing out that you were an attorney.
After a lengthy debate they asked the city attorney to revisit the language especially casues for termination with 9 months of compensation. So, we will be back at the next meeting. I did express my disappointment that Keith Rattay, the man of the hour, was not present. Hopefully he did not have a family emergency.