Severance Package Approved for Ousted Lawndale Official

The Lawndale City Council has approved a $23,700 severance package that includes half of the $5,000 in benefits the council had refused to pay ousted City Manager Daniel P. Joseph last week.

Joseph said he would accept the offer, which substantially complies with a proposal he made in a letter to City Atty. David J. Aleshire last week. The offer, approved at a special meeting Thursday night, includes four months’ salary of $20,808, two months’ benefits--about $2,500--and a $400 car allowance.

“It meets with my approval, but it is not necessarily to my satisfaction,” he said.

Joseph threatened to sue the city last week when Councilmen Harold E. Hofmann, Larry Rudolph and Dan McKenzie balked at paying him the $5,000 in benefits he sought as part of a $26,000 severance package negotiated in a closed-door session Nov. 17.

On Dec. 1, when the draft agreement was presented to the council, the three councilmen said that they meant to include four-months’ salary but not benefits.

In an interview the next day, Joseph said the councilmen reneged on an agreement they made Nov. 17 in exchange for his resignation, and he threatened to sue.

Mayor Sarann Kruse and Councilwoman Carol Norman refused to participate in the Nov. 17 session, saying the councilmen had already made up their minds to fire Joseph. They have abstained on the two subsequent votes on Joseph’s severance.