SDG&E; Pay Raises, Take 2
The to-do over the 20%-plus salary raises for San Diego Gas & Electric Co. chairman, president and chief executive Thomas A. Page and for three other top executives is a bit overblown, utility officials believe.
As proof, they argue that SDG&E; management salaries are lower than those paid other energy utility executives--particularly considering that Page earns $348,750 a year for filling all three top spots.
For the record, here’s a breakdown for California’s two other major energy utilities.
At Pacific Gas & Electric Co. in Northern California, where revenues of $7.8 billion are nearly five times greater than SDG&E;’s, Chairman and Chief Executive Frederick Mielke Jr. earned $571,002 in salary and bonuses last year. PG&E; President Barton W. Shackelford pulled down $471,164 in salary and bonuses in 1984.
At Southern California Edison, where revenues of $4.8 billion are three times as great as SDG&E;, chairman and chief executive William R. Gould made $484,167 last year. Gould has since stepped down. His replacement, Howard P. Allen, made $444,167 as president of the company in 1984.
‘Fast Eddie’ Slow to Pay
Sportscaster “Fast Eddie” Alexander returns to San Diego Monday. But not in very grand style.
He will appear before U.S. District Judge Earl B. Gilliam to explain why he has not yet paid any of the $400,000 in restitution he was supposed to be making to his former investors.
Alexander, former sports director at KGTV (Channel 10) and now a sports broadcaster in San Francisco, was sentenced to a two-year prison term and five years’ probation after he pleaded guilty to one count of bankruptcy fraud and one count of mail fraud in August, 1983. A federal indictment accused him of swindling investors out of $1.2 million in a series of phony business ventures.
Alexander was released earlier this year but federal prosecutors claim he hasn’t made any restitution to investors in either his Marina Village restaurant or in his Los Angeles college sports television syndicate.
Disputed Dispute
An attorney for San Diego-based Wyatt & Co. said Monday that he is surprised about the hoopla surrounding his client’s firm.
Investors are not having trouble getting their funds out, according to attorney Kennan Kaeder. In fact, because Wyatt & Co. is publicly traded, the firm itself would have little control over the return of funds, he said.
Rather, there is “only $30,000 in dispute,” Kaeder said, and that amount involves several civil suits filed against company president Christopher Wyatt when he was an independent broker between September, 1982, and January, 1984.
The National Assn. of Securities Dealers has not called a hearing, insisted Kaeder, although he acknowledged that Wyatt himself has called for a NASD hearing.
In addition, the state Department of Corporations will examine reported complaints about possible trade practice violations sometime this week, according to a department source.
The $30,000 dispute, Kaeder said, dates to when Wyatt was a broker with Private Ledger and SECO Securities in Denver. The issue, he said, dealt with “did Wyatt inform the broker-dealers that he was (also selling) private placements. He did inform them. But we couldn’t deliver on one of them.”
Kaeder did concede that the Securities and Exchange Commission spent three days in December taking depositions from Wyatt and that the firm “fully cooperated” with the regulators.
More Pay at Hotels
The increase in pay for San Diego County’s 20,000 hotel employees outpaced inflation in 1984, with pay increases for hotel workers averaging between 5% and 6% last year, according to a recent survey of 65 local hotel properties by Laventhol & Horwath, the accounting firm specializing in tourism.
Hotel general managers pulled down the heftiest salaries, the survey showed. Last year, the average general manager’s salary was $33,850, although that was a decrease of 1.5% from the previous year because the range of salaries has widened, from a low of $7,150 to a high of $100,000.
The steepest salary climb was reported by hotel marketing directors--from $22,272 in 1983 to $32,950 last year.
The total annual hotel payroll in the county is about $240 million, according to the survey.
Say What?
From the How-Not-to-Write-a-Press-Release File comes this charming and muddled news release from a Northern California computer software firm:
“Turbo Pascal 3.0 has achieved a two-fold increase in compile and execution speeds over Version 2.0, while adding graphics, optional binary coded decimal (BCD) support, I/O redirection, and a memory mapped editor to its list of new features.”
