Are There Other ‘Sweetheart’ Deals in San Juan Capistrano?

Talk about a “tempest in a teacup”! The recent series of articles concerning the financial dealings of the San Juan Capistrano city manager, Stephen B. Julian, has a distinct odor of Yellow Journalism.

I was initially attracted to read “City Loans Its Manager $398,235 Over 10 Years” (Jan. 6), not because I’m a resident of San Juan Capistrano (which I’m not), but because I believed that such a full-page-plus investment of news space would certainly provide an accurate and unbiased report on some real heavy-duty shenanigans going on at this City Hall.

And what kind of conclusion of wrongdoing did I come up with after I finished this “blow the lid off the town” story? I’ll tell you what I came up with. Nothing!

First, I decided to examine the eye of this hurricane, the city manager himself. Did he steal, embezzle, or in any way take city money he was not entitled to? Evidently not.

On the contrary, instead of requesting “commensurate cash payment, with no obligation to repay,” as suggested by Mayor Kenneth E. Friess, Julian elected to “borrow” against his own benefits, i.e., his vacation pay, sick pay and holiday leave pay, etc., which indicates to me that instead of enjoying the normal benefits that any employee could expect (vacations, sick leave, etc.), Mr. Julian forfeited these hard-earned perks and kept on working, rather than ask the city to pick up the tab for his personal financial problems.

A noble gesture to be sure, but isn’t that still against the rules? Well, not according to James Hendrickson, author of the 1990 study of city manager’s salary packages.

He labeled the option of being able to convert all accrued leave to cash as being “novel.” I believe someone else referred to it as “unique.”

But nobody has been able to say that the loans or other payments made to Mr. Julian were illegal, unlawful, amoral or involved any wrongdoing.

On top of that, it appears that everyone concerned agrees that Mr. Julian has done an outstanding job of managing the city for the past 10 years.

RONALD W. CURRAN, Irvine