Monday, May 2, 2011

Negotiation 101



What not to say before negotiating the salary for a new city manager:


With broad grins, Encinitas council members announced [Gus] Vina's appointment to the post immediately after a 20-minute, closed-to-the-public meeting Monday afternoon.

"I think all of us are pleased, almost giddy," Encinitas Mayor James Bond said, describing the council's unanimous decision to offer Vina the job and his eagerness to accept it.

[...]

His salary is still in negotiation, and will be the subject of a public meeting later this month, council members said.




This is a guy without a job who wants to live in Encinitas and would take this job for half what the city is going to pay him. And they're going to give him a fat pension to boot.

On the plus side, he's an outsider, so he's not (yet) beholden to Encinitas' Good Ol' Boy network. And he's 50, which is almost retirement age in government work, so he won't accrue too many years before retiring to Pension Fat City. Hopefully he's already rung up a doozy of a pension on Sacramento, so he won't have to ding us too badly.

More on Vina's resignation from his last job (and a favorable review of same) here.

5 comments:

  1. Massive borrow and spend in the city's future?

    http://www.kcra.com/news/9264141/detail.html

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  2. Well, if there's one thing Encinitas needs, it's a cat shelter!

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  3. Giddy?? Is Bonds losing it? The only reason they should be giddy would be that he'll work at a reasonable salary and not demand an outrageous pension package. Incorporation was a mistake for Encinitas - all it has done is to allow people to bleed the public coffer.

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  4. Not to worry. Our new City Manager, Gustavo Vina, el cubano, will take care of everything with his 30 years of financial experience. I'm giddy too.

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  5. Hey, I'm not thrilled with his "expertise" so far. He is paid too much, and he seems to always be in favor of adding more debt. He didn't divulge at the 7/11/12 Special Meeting at the Community Center how much of the money we are floating for the (bogus) lease revenue bond would have to go to pay for "Bond Counsel" a high-priced attorney adept at floating these bonds that eliminate the taxpayers' State Constitutional right to vote on bond indebtedness that comes out of the General Fund, when there's NO REVENUE STREAM coming from use and occupancy of the subject property which is being financed.

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