Inglewood Officials Ask for Big Bucks if Council Fires Them : Government: The city’s three top administrators fear a possible ouster. The council’s reaction to their contract proposal is cool.

The city of Inglewood’s three highest-paid administrators, concerned that their jobs may be in jeopardy because of changing attitudes on the City Council, are seeking extended employment contracts that would make it easier, but costlier, for the council to remove them.

Council members, however, are resisting, saying the proposed contracts for City Manager Paul Eckles, City Atty. Howard Rosten and Assistant City Manager Norman Cravens may be too generous and raise unresolved legal questions.

“We want to give enhancements for people staying, not leaving,” Mayor Edward Vincent said Tuesday after what he described as a contentious closed-door council meeting on the proposed contracts, which the three administrators submitted as a group.

The council plans to revise the contracts substantially and bring them back for consideration April 9, Vincent said.

The package, prepared by Eckles and outlined in a private memo to the council, would have given all three executives 50-month contracts. If an executive was fired, his salary would have been doubled for his final five months on the job, and he would have been given more than $100,000 in severance pay.

Eckles, city manager for 15 years, is paid $119,928 a year. Rosten, a 20-year veteran, $118,150, and Cravens, hired 10 years ago, $101,764. The salaries and other benefits in the proposed package were not disclosed.

Under Eckles’ proposal, all three executives would have agreed to leave the city if three of the five council members voted to fire them. In exchange, the executives would have gotten the sweetened pay and severance benefits.

As part of the plan, Rosten and Cravens would have given up their Civil Service job protection, which requires the city to show cause before removing them. Eckles would have given up the provision in his current contract that requires four City Council votes to dismiss him.

It was those proposals--which would have altered the City Charter--that raised legal questions for an outside attorney who reviewed the package for the council.

Relations between the council and top city staff have been strained in recent years. Some members of the part-time council have sought to boost their own authority, causing some executives to fear a shake-up in City Hall staffing. Councilmen Garland Hardeman and Daniel Tabor frequently question staff initiatives at meetings and have requested paid staff and committees of their own.

Race has been another point of contention between some members of the council and the staff.

The three executives, all of whom are white, have been with the city for a total of 45 years and have generally received praise for their effectiveness. But in recent years, Hardeman and Tabor, both black, have questioned the power the staff wields in running a city that is 50% black and 38% Latino.

Eckles alluded to that tension in his memo to the council.

“Recent events have generated open speculation that a majority of the City Council might someday wish to make major changes in form and staffing of Inglewood City Government,” Eckles wrote. “. . .The future seems uncertain. This is unsettling for City Government. It is destabilizing.

“In these circumstances career professionals start working on their resumes,” Eckles added, prompting speculation from council members that the executives are eyeing positions elsewhere.

In an interview, Eckles said that his current three-year contract expires next year and that the proposed extension is part of the normal contract process. He would not elaborate on his memo.

The division between the staff and council was widened in 1989 when Hardeman, a Los Angeles police officer, added a strong voice to two-term Councilman Tabor’s often-stated intention to integrate city government from top to bottom.

Tabor said he is not seeking to oust any of the three executives but does wish to give the council more of a say in the operation of the city. He said he will continue to press for affirmative action in hiring and in awarding city contracts.

Hardeman, who faces reelection next week, has complained that the city’s top administrators are not aggressive enough in pushing affirmative action.

Vincent, Councilman Anthony Scardenzan and Councilman Jose Fernandez have been supporters of the city administrators, but even they were hesitant to approve Eckles’ contract package as it was presented. Vincent and others said it put a premium on leaving rather than performance.

Although top city staff members were reluctant to discuss their conflicts with the council, a former employee said many feel hostility from Hardeman.

“I felt the racial polarization that was occurring was not positive,” said Pat Martel, a Latina who left as Eckles’ executive assistant several months ago to become assistant city manager in South San Francisco. “A lot of people are feeling uncomfortable, but it was not my impression that people were pulling out their resumes.”

Vincent and other supporters of the executives said the three provide the city with stability as council members come and go.

The executives are among the highest paid in the South Bay. In contrast, the four part-time council members earn $450 a month, and the part-time mayor earns $900 a month. Past efforts to implement a system with a full-time mayor in Inglewood have failed.

Vincent said that the city needs all three of the top executives and that he can understand their request for a beefed-up contract. He said he will seek to reduce the divisiveness on the council and allow city staff to do its job.

“Who wants to stay in a storm when you can go to calmer waters?” he asked, adding that the executives “are looking for security. I want to let them know that they don’t need a security blanket.”