Ex-Manager Bobb Says He’ll Take Retroactive Pay Raise: ‘I Earned It’

Former Santa Ana City Manager Robert C. Bobb said Tuesday that he will accept a $2,100 check from the city in retroactive pay and agreed with one City Council member’s comment that pay raises at City Hall are often racially biased.

Bobb was reached on vacation at a Virginia resort, one day after the council voted 5 to 2 to give him the retroactive raise.

Before a council debate on the issue began Monday, Councilman John Acosta said he would accuse his colleagues of racism if they did not agree to the raise. The council, Acosta said, has not given raises recently to black or Latino administrators in the city. He cited Allen Doby, chief of the Parks and Recreation Department, and Allen Sanchez, personnel manager, as examples.

Vice Mayor P. Lee Johnson, who voted against Bobb’s raise, said: “That’s stretching it, John. This is not a racist issue.” Mayor Dan Griset cast the other no vote.

Bitter Reaction

Told of the council’s comments, Bobb reacted bitterly Tuesday to some accusations that the pay raise constitutes a gift of public funds.

“I will accept whatever check they send me because I earned it,” said Bobb, who was city manager for 2 1/2 years. “I gave them more than they paid for. They got more than a bargain. If they were unsatisfied with my performance, I should have been out of there.”

Bobb, who is black, said part of the reason he decided to accept a $110,000 position as city manager in Richmond, Va., was the fact that the council had not granted him a pay raise since September, 1984. In the meantime, other members of the city administration received raises, and Bobb, at $84,000, had become only the third-highest paid employee at City Hall.

Another factor was Measure C, a proposition on the June ballot that if approved would have required ward elections for council seats in November.

“The innuendoes were clearly there,” Bobb said, that he would not receive a raise until after the November election due to the political unrest in the city.

“A salary increase was granted (in early 1986) to every city employee except the city manager,” Bobb said.

The new city manager, former director of community development David Ream, was given a $98,500 salary. Such a large increase over his pay rate, Bobb said, again reflects the alleged pattern of discrimination. He stressed his respect for Ream, who is white, but pointed out that his successor has no experience as a city manager.

But several council members disagreed. Said Johnson, “Had he (Bobb) stayed, I would have been willing to give him a bigger pay raise than we gave Ream.”

Councilman Acosta proposed mailing Bobb a check in Richmond, contending that the city owed him at least that much after failing to evaluate his performance and allowing him to slip below the level of two other city employees, deputy city managers Rex Swanson and Raymond C. Davis.

Griset and Johnson argued that the payment could be a precedent for other city employees to request retroactive pay raises and that it was questionable because Bobb is no longer a city employee. “I think it smacks of being a gift of public funds,” Johnson said.

‘Slap in the Face’

Bobb said he considers that characterization and the large increase for Ream “a slap in the face.”

There was little public reaction to the council’s action, although real estate saleswoman Mickey Madden, one of the few people left in the audience when the council took action shortly before 11 p.m. Monday, criticized the decision.

She said the council should have granted Bobb the raise while he was here and called him the best city manager the city has had. She called successor Ream “an unknown commodity.”

Jim Lowman, a spokesman for the coalition of citizens groups that sponsored Measure C and at one time called for a recall of the council and the dismissal of Bobb, echoed Griset’s sentiment.

“I can’t see that there’s ever been any precedent for that (a retroactive raise), and the very suggestion of that by John Acosta shows his lack of fiscal responsibility,” he said.

Councilman Dan Young said the city owes Bobb some remuneration because verbal commitments to perform an evaluation of his work were not kept in February of 1985 and 1986. However, he said, “I’m not aware of any discriminatory practices.”

Young said raises for administrative employees are handled by the city manager, not the council. Council members vote only on the salary for the city manager.

Acosta made his allegations of discriminatory practices when it appeared the council would vote down the pay raise Monday afternoon. Acosta, a Latino, said he would turn the issue around by saying a rejection would reflect discriminatory practices within the city.

‘Deadly Serious’

Acosta said he is not surprised by the quiet reaction, noting that the issue is “so touchy nobody wants to touch it.” However, he said, “I was deadly serious when I made those statements.”

Councilman Wilson B. Hart said the accusations had no effect on his decision to change his position and support Acosta’s motion. He said he had merely decided that Bobb deserved the money.

Hart said Monday that there had been no indication from Bobb that he was unhappy with the state of affairs and that he had never heard a demand for an evaluation or a raise from the former city manager. “He’s a big boy and doesn’t shrink from his interests,” Hart said.

Bobb said Tuesday that he would never make any such demands.

“I am not going to beg anyone. I will never crawl on my hands and knees to anyone for a raise,” he said.