The Santa Ana City Council’s incredibly ridiculous decision to make their new City Manager, David Cavazos, a multi-millionaire (when you add in his six figure pension from the City of Phoenix) has backfired in a big way – exploding on the airwaves of our local radio and TV stations. Arizona City Council candidate Keogh Parks piled on too, at a City Council candidates’ forum, according to KJZZ News.
“The city manager who got the biggest pay raise in the entire history of the City of Phoenix is leaving after four, five months. It seems a little odd to me that the city council didn’t have some kind of a guarantee from the city manager that he was going to stick around for a few years before he actually left,” Keogh Parks said.
The Council candidates were also upset that Cavazos will receive a city pension, as some have argued for a 401(k) model for new employees. Let’s put it this way – the good people of Phoenix will be stuck paying for Cavazos until he dies, and getting nothing in return. Cavazos will make more than half a million dollars in total compensation a year, $315,000 thousand is his base salary. The rest he will make in benefits like retirement, $36,000 for housing during his first year and $7500 for moving expenses.
Only the city manager in Indian Wells will have a higher salary and benefits package for the year at $677,172, according to KFI.
Some wonder if Santa Ana should be paying such high dollar to get Cavazos here, in fact Cavazos will make about $60,000 more than the previous City Manager, according to Fox News.
Santa Ana matched Cavazos’ salary as Phoenix’s city manager, a post he has held since 2009.
Phoenix has a population of approximately 1.47 million, more than four times that of Santa Ana, a city of about 360,000, according to NBC News.
“I’m confident that with his experience in business attraction and business retention we’ll be able to make up tenfold the first year the difference in salary compared to what we were paying our previous city manager,” Councilman David Benavides told the Los Angeles Times.
So Benavides thinks businesses will come to Santa Ana because we now have one of the highest paid city managers in California? Wow. What about the anti big-box ordinance that Benavides and his pals voted for? Good luck attracting new businesses with that kind of attitude!
“You get what you pay for,” Councilwoman Michele Martinez told the Los Angeles Times. “We wanted the best and we didn’t want to shortchange our city. He’s very qualified; we didn’t want to nickel and dime.”
I am amazed that Martinez would mention nickels and dimes as she has admitted to selling drugs in her youth – presumably “nickel and dime” bags of pot!
Is he going to Happy Hour at Chapter One?
Or does he prefer more Velvety Lounges.
I’m watching FOX&Friends on FOX News Channel and they’re talking about this. Ridiculing the city. And I agree with them.
I just have to ask, where was all this media when Dave Ream was creating the mess that we found ourselves in. With the exception of myself, Art and a few others, Ream was lauded and celebrated.
Ream fiddled in Coto as Santa Ana burned and not a single media outlet said a word. Then again I think we know why that is, don’t we?
To be fair Sean, Ream was a catalyst for alot of what you see today (or I should say you guys bashing Ream were). But before Rizzo and Bell nobody scrutinized things like you did then. If it made it to the news it was rare.
I think the point is, you would think the elected leaders of Santa Ana would have learned a lesson and act more cautiously and prudently. OR AT THE VERY LEAST, defend they’re move, but with silly quotes like those above who’s going to believe they know anything. Those are slogans.
Why didn’t the well spoken mayor or Lawyer on the council stand up and say: “hey, this is why we need this guy, and give a concise fact filled explaination”. Vince won’t because that guy stands for NOTHING. And the mayor, well, he isn’t going to save the shipwreck victims who sunk his boat.
Yeah, no one said anything about Ream, the biggest thief in the history of Santa Ana. And the city council just said that they didn’t know what he was doing all those years…Really?
People of Santa Ana, don’t let the City Council bend you over and rape you financially! If they hits this guy, it’s time to recall every city council member. Like John and Ken would say, “heads on a stick!”
I don’t think it’s anybodys business what professionals personal finances are. The man obviously worked hard to get where he is at. He is not writing his own checks to himself, so what’s the deal? So what he gets a pension but still chooses to work, the money that was quoted that he gets is before taxes not after, so it’s half of what the media said it was. This is very appalling how no one has privacy anymore, it’s distasteful.
One of the biggest factors in enhancing the city pension for Cavazos is the nearly 33 percent raise that Mayor Greg Stanton and the City Council approved for him late last year, retroactive to July 2012. That brought Cavazos’ annual base pay to $315,000 — the same amount he will receive in the much smaller Santa Ana.
The council-approved pay raise will significantly increase the amount Cavazos will be paid for his unused sick leave and vacation hours when he leaves, because those calculations will be made at his new hourly rate of $151.44, even though all his sick hours were accrued when Cavazos was paid less.
The Republic calculated Cavazos’ sick-leave payout at $199,401 and his vacation payout at $31,500, based on the city manager’s contract and his most recent sick-leave and vacation balances.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/20130829retiring-phoenix-city-manager-cavazos-able-spike-his-city-pension.html