Montebello Personnel Flap Signals Power Shift

The City Council is considering stripping City Administrator Joseph Goeden of his hiring and firing powers following the sudden resignation of Finance Director Grant Gundestrup.

Gundestrup, who was hired by Goeden in 1982, resigned March 22. Council members said they still do not know why he left.

“He was gone before the council had knowledge of it,” Councilman William M. Molinari said. “Nobody had a chance to find out why he left in such haste. You don’t have a department head just walk out. It just doesn’t happen.”

Working for State Agency

Council members said they did not know where Gundestrup went. The Times found him earlier this week at the state Housing Finance Agency in Sacramento, where he was working as a mortgage loan accounting manager. Contacted by telephone, Gundestrup refused to comment. His vacancy in Montebello has not yet been filled.

At least three of the five council members--Mayor Art Payan, Catherine P. Hensel and Molinari--say they want greater control over department heads. They say they want the authority to approve any hirings, firings or salary increases recommended by Goeden. Goeden now makes the final decision on those matters.

The council has asked the city attorney to determine if it is legal for the council to assume that kind of authority. It has also asked Goeden to submit a report on the effect of such a power shift by its Tuesday meeting, city officials said. The council could vote on a new policy as early as its June 10 meeting.

Hensel, who proposed the change, said she does not think hirings and firings of department heads should be left to one person.

“If the city administrator has the right to fire department heads without the council’s approval,” Hensel said, “it could get to a situation--and I’m not saying it has happened before--where the city administrator could dislike somebody and let them go. That person could be doing a good job but be fired because the city administrator may not get along with him.”

Goeden said that he and Gundestrup “got along on a personal level,” but the city administrator would not elaborate on the resignation, saying it is a personnel matter and “would be a conflict for me professionally to discuss someone’s performance.”

However, Molinari said Goeden sent the council a memo in early March indicating that he and Gundestrup had had a disagreement and that Gundestrup had walked out. The memo indicated that the two later reached an understanding that the finance director would seek another job and leave in May.

Announced in Newsletter

But on March 22, the council received a department newsletter announcing Gundestrup had quit that day, Molinari said, adding that “we never spoke with him and Goeden has never really elaborated on what their differences were.”

Gundestrup’s resignation marks the second time Goeden’s handling of the finance director’s position has created a stir.

When Goeden hired Gundestrup in 1982, he passed over Geraldine Sepulveda Arnopp, a Latina who was then the accounting manager.

Goeden’s decision prompted Councilman Payan to question his hiring and affirmative action policies, saying that top management did not reflect the minority makeup of the community nor the tradition of promoting from within the City of Montebello.

Affirmative Action Plan

The Los Angeles County Commission on the Status of Women called the action a “complete disregard for the city’s affirmative action plan to recruit, hire and promote minorities and women.”

Goeden, 35, refused at the time to explain why he had refused to promote Arnopp, but he did concede that department heads had traditionally been promoted from within and agreed that minorities were not adequately represented.

Policies concerning hiring and firing of department heads vary from city to city throughout the state, according to Victoria Clark, communications director for the League of California Cities in Sacramento.

In the Southeast area, city administrators in Commerce, Downey, Huntington Park, Norwalk and Whittier submit their recommendations to the council for approval, with some variations in the policies. In Downey, for example, the city administrator may not hire but may fire without the council’s permission.

Council Often Notified

City managers in Long Beach, Artesia, Bell, Bell Gardens, Hawaiian Gardens, La Mirada and Santa Fe Springs do not need council approval, but often notify the council of their actions, spokesmen in those cities said.

In Pico Rivera, the council granted the city manager power over department heads as of May 15, bringing its municipal code into conformity with the manager form of government, City Manager Dennis Courtemarche said.

Courtemarche added that one of the distinctions between a city administrator and city manager is that an administrator is required to obtain council approval for such actions but a city manager is not. The League of California Cities confirmed that distinction, saying, however, that a city can set its own policy.