City Manager’s Raise Prompts Recall Effort

A group of Pico Rivera residents is pushing to recall the mayor and two City Council members after the three awarded a $40,000 raise and other perks to the longtime city manager.

The Pico Rivera City Council in January gave City Manager Dennis Courtemarche a substantial compensation package to keep him from taking a private-sector job. His new contract included the raise, which put his yearly salary at $200,000. If city reserves grow, Courtemarche could receive an additional 12.5% raise in July 2005.

Courtemarche’s supporters said the raise was warranted because of his reputation among other city managers and his 20 years of experience with the city.

“At a time when there are low resources, you have to have a very talented person at the helm. Someone who knows how to use his network and how to leverage every dollar,” said Mayor Beatrice Proo, who voted for the package along with Councilmen Gregory Salcido and Carlos A. Garcia.

Salcido has been on the council for five years, and Garcia for seven. Proo, who has served for 11 years, said she thought the recall effort was started by a few residents who want to be on the council.

A successful recall in 1997 ousted two City Council members.

Recall proponents say the city manager’s raise is a negligent use of taxpayer money. The North Southeast Coalition to Reform Local Government, which has 75 members, is working to collect the 5,300 signatures needed to put the recall on the ballot by November.

“The city manager had a job title and a job description,” said Jacalyn Vercoe, who supports the recall. “It’s, ‘Keep doing your job or you’ll be out of a job.’ Instead, [the council] said, ‘We’ll give you a raise.’ ”

Councilman Pete Ramirez, who voted against the raise along with Councilman David Armenta, said it was not the time for a big raise given the state budget crisis and the city’s own financial woes.

“What happened to civil service?” asked Ramirez. “I’m a firm believer that if you’re a civil service employee, you’re not there to get rich.”

The council has voted on Courtemarche’s raise three times in the last six months. It was first approved behind closed doors at a July meeting. It was rescinded in October after the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office discovered the council had violated the Brown Act, the state’s open meeting law. The council voted on the raise again in December, but it was not approved. The raise was reintroduced and passed Jan. 5 amid protests from at least a dozen residents attending the meeting.

In addition to the salary increase, the city paid $51,000 to Courtemarche’s retirement account and said he could keep $8,100 of salary and benefits he earned before the original pay raise was rescinded.

“They offered me a package that was sufficient enough to keep me,” Courtemarche said. “In the scheme of a $50-million corporation, $40,000 isn’t a large sum.”

But some residents say Courtemarche is just too expensive for their small city. Pico Rivera, with 63,000 residents, is in southeast Los Angeles County and has a median household income of $42,000. Its mostly Latino residents work in manufacturing and warehousing as well as a growing retail industry.

Like many other cities bracing for fiscally lean times, the city tried to avoid a deficit this year by shelving projects that were in the design stage and eliminating programs such as a free tree-removal service.

The city manager also put a hiring freeze on all city positions. As a result, Courtemarche said, about a dozen nonessential positions in City Hall remain vacant.

City officials expect recent redevelopment projects, such as a 60-acre retail center on Washington Boulevard, to bring the needed revenue into city coffers.

Courtemarche said he should be credited for those projects and for bringing in retailers such as Wal-Mart and Starbucks to the new shopping center. The first Borders bookstore in the city opened in June. Aside from bringing more retail options to residents, the new center will generate an expected $1.5 million a year in sales taxes.

Bringing in a big-name chain is no easy task, said Glenn Southard, past president of the California City Management Foundation. “You’re competing against every other city for that business. There’s only so many Nordstroms, or so many Krispy Kremes,” Southard said.

“The scope of knowledge required to be a city manager is broad,” he added. “One minute you’re dealing with a garbage issue, the next a police issue. You have to have a lot of skills working with a variety of people.”

But Courtemarche’s critics say bringing business into the city is his job, not a reason for a raise. They said he already was one of the highest-paid city managers in southeast Los Angeles County when his annual salary was $160,000.

Montebello pays its city manager $127,000 a year for overseeing a $90-million budget that includes police, fire, and transit departments. The city manager of Whittier earns $166,000 a year managing a $79-million budget with its own police and transit departments. Pico Rivera has a $46-million budget and contracts out police and fire services. “There is something very wrong,” Ramirez said. “They’re all underpaid or we’re just out of the ordinary.”

Pico Rivera resident Ruben Olague, attending last week’s City Council meeting, said he would probably sign the recall petition.

“The city doesn’t have money to fix the streets and sidewalks, but they give this guy a $40,000 raise,” Olague said. “Where did they get that money from?”