City Clerk Won’t Get ‘Automatic’ Pay Raise : Oxnard: Council votes against 5% salary boost for Daniel Martinez, saying he has not shown that he deserves it.

A usually automatic pay raise for the Oxnard city clerk was denied Tuesday by a majority of City Council members, who ruled that Daniel Martinez has not shown he deserves the increase.

Martinez fails to grasp the complexities of his position and has befuddled an office that ran smoothly for years, the council decided in rejecting the salary increase by a vote of 4 to 1.

The 5% annual pay raise--about $2,400--was delayed in November after the council asked the city manager to conduct a review of Martinez’s performance. At the time, the council said it wanted to base all raises strictly on merit.

But Martinez was not rebuffed entirely Tuesday. Included in the council’s action was a decision to increase by $150 a month the compensation both the city clerk and city treasurer receive for performing their elected duties.

That increase was recommended for approval because of the increase in inflation since compensation for the clerk’s elected duties was fixed at $300 a month in 1979. It amounts to a 3.75% raise for Martinez, who is paid $48,000 a year.

After a review of Martinez’s work, City Manager Thomas Frutchey concluded in a report to the council that Martinez’s job performance is substandard--despite the support of a competent staff.

The council denied the merit pay raise based on Frutchey’s recommendation while at the same time approving the elected-duties salary hike.

Minutes later, the City Council recessed to closed-door discussions about the job performances of Frutchey and City Atty. Gary Gillig. The city attorney said he would also have preferred that the Martinez issue be dealt with privately.

“It’s public only because the district attorney and I disagree on this subject,” Gillig told the council.

Because Martinez performs the bulk of his duties as head of the city clerk’s office, he answers to Frutchey, who concluded that Martinez has not earned the pay raise.

But portions of the city clerk’s job are regarded as independent elected-official duties and are not subject to the whims of particular City Council members. For those services, he will now receive $450 a month.

Oxnard is one of only three cities in the county--including Ojai and Fillmore--that elect city clerks. Each of the other cities in the county appoints the clerk.

Oxnard Mayor Manuel M. Lopez, who lost a bid to delay the Martinez issue until the city treasurer could also participate, cast the lone vote against the recommendation, saying the proposal before the council Tuesday was purely political.

In the often-bitter 1992 city clerk contest, Martinez defeated Mabi Plisky, the wife of Councilman Michael A. Plisky, who had served as clerk for more than 10 years.

Mabi Plisky was later given a job with the Oxnard Police Department, but left after public complaints that she was hired because of her husband’s influence.

Lopez, a distant cousin of Martinez, said the city clerk has been undermined since he won election to the post in November, 1992.

“There has been a consistent attack on the office for political reasons,” Lopez said before Tuesday’s meeting.

“It never should have surfaced,” Lopez said of the controversy. “If there had never been a change in the clerk, this whole thing would never have happened.”

Councilman Plisky remained mostly quiet during the discussion. But the majority of the council, including Plisky, said they were adopting the changes only to tie pay increases to the quality of work performed by employees.

In tight economies, Councilman Thomas E. Holden said, “I don’t think you’re going to see any successful businesses where automatic pay raises are going to exist.”

Councilman Andres Herrera said the council may want to review the ordinance that stipulates city clerks be elected instead of appointed.

“It’s something we’re going to have to deal with,” Herrera said about possibly appointing city clerks in the future. “The times have changed, and I think we need to have it looked at.”

Several audience members told the council during the public comment portion of Tuesday’s meeting that they supported Frutchey’s recommendation to deny Martinez the once-automatic pay raise.

In his own defense, Martinez said he was given virtually no assistance running the office from Frutchey or the former city clerk.

“My requests were made in the spirit of cooperation and the pursuit of excellence, which is made all the more difficult because of the lack of oral or written guidance over the past 17 months,” Martinez said, reading from a prepared statement.

“Hopefully, today marks a turn in the management practices of the past.”