Tripepi in, Cowley out

The La Puente City Council approved a $20,000/monthly contract with Willdan Financial Services on Monday for transition manager services. Frank Tripepi, Willdan's president and chief executive officer, will be the actual man in the hot seat.

It's unclear what, if any, money Tripepi will get for the work, since he already receives a salary from Willdan.

Tripepi will essentially be serving in a quasi-interim city manager role, taking on the duties formerly held by Carol Cowley. Cowley retired last month and negotiations to keep her on as a consultant through December went sour.

Apparently, the City Council held a closed session meeting about the negotiations about a week before Carol's last day. Well, no action was reported leading Councilman John Solis to believe that negotiations were done.

But city officials held on to hope, stating that negotiations had not officially been called off.

Except that Carol's last day came and went with no progress on the negotiations, and since none of the council members brought it up again, the negotiations died just like that.

Solis said last week that Cowley was willing to work 40 hours a week plus additional hours for meetings for roughly $12,000 a month -- her outgoing salary.

Solis seemed concerned about paying Tripepi anything more than Cowley, since he has no experience in La Puente.

Mayor Louie Lujan's reasoning for the pay is as follows: the city has about $110,000 left budgeted for Cowley's old position.

At $20,000 a month, that gives the city about five and half months of pay to Willdan without exceeding current budgeted costs.

For now, at least.

Willdan's contract is indefinite, so Tripepi will stay on essentially until the city finds Cowley's permanent replacement.

Lujan's goal was to hire within three to six months.

And don't expect Tripepi to move into that full-time role. He made it pretty clear on Monday that's not a job he wants to do again.

"Never. That's a business I never want to do again."

Tripepi was city manager in Rosemead for almost 30 years before retiring in 2002.