City Attorney Gets $6,000 Pay Increase

City Atty. Mark Sellers said he wasn’t surprised he did not receive unanimous support when the City Council gave him a $6,000 pay hike.

Councilwoman Linda Parks was the only council member who voted against giving Sellers a 5.5% annual raise at the panel’s meeting Tuesday night.

“It was expected,” said Sellers, who along with City Manager MaryJane Lazz received merit salary hikes based on their performances during the 1998-99 fiscal year. “She thinks I worry too much about property rights as opposed to her proposals for restricting development and changing properties to open space and making it more difficult to develop.”

Parks wouldn’t detail her reasoning for not supporting Sellers’ raise, but said her decision was based on his performance. Parks voted with the council to grant Lazz a 4.5% annual raise. “I hadn’t the concerns I had with [Lazz] that I did with Mr. Sellers,” she said.

The other council members voted to increase Sellers’ pay to $115,080.

Both Sellers and Lazz have been important to the city’s success, Mayor Dennis Gillette said.

“Both of them work very hard on behalf of the residents of the city,” Gillette said. “I think they are both exceptional professionals in public administration.”

Lazz, whose annual salary was bumped to $146,304, was pleased with the council’s decision.

“We’re grateful to the council who appreciates our work and for the employees who work for us and make our jobs easier,” said Lazz, who officially became city manager in January.

The city determines Lazz’s and Sellers’ salaries by comparing them with those of city managers and city attorneys in other California cities--13 in Lazz’s case and 10 for Sellers--according to Denise Wilson Cox, the city’s human resources manager.

Sellers’ raise placed him ninth out of 10 cities on his comparable city list, with only Simi Valley’s city attorney making a lower salary. Lazz now falls ninth on her list, with the city managers of Oxnard, Ventura, Escondido and Concord earning less, Cox said.