Chi departure: UPDATE

KEEP THE CAR?

Get out! Where can I work for a government?

This nonsense needs to stop....

TAXPAYERS NEEDS TO RAISE HELL.

Thanks to the mou approved by the previous mayor tran and nunez and what's her name. must be nice to leave with a new car that's paid off on top of the big bucks. This guy made off like a bandit. it helps to deffinately be friends with the majority of the city council. this gay was no fool. he played of out to the end. smart, that's for sure.

This is absolutely ridiculous!!! Highway robbery, who was stupid enough to approve this stipulation in his contract!

Rosemead, you got had with this guy and his crony hires.. and now your city coffers (and taxpayers) is out almost $400K because of this poor decision! You should check if his hires got sweetheart deals as well!

If the council knows any better, after the 90 days are up, they should consider some spring cleaning and get rid of the stench left!

By way of explanation, it was indicated at the last council meeting that Chi was paid $800 per month as a car allowance. Evidently he used those moneys to purchase /lease the car. In other words, it never belonged to the city.

It seems this exorbitant vehicle allowance was approved in his contract by the same previous leadership that ok'd his hire in the first place and raised the severance agreement from 50% of salary to 100%.

Soooo the goose continued to lay the golden eggs. The council should indeed continue with the spring cleaning. Its long past time for Rosemead to stop being a cash cow.

So can we assume by the "outrage" expressed over Chi's perks will the new (and undoubtedly virtuous) council will pledge.....which is a fancy way of saying PROMISE....THEY WILL PROMISE:

1. The new city manager will not get any sort of car allowance; meaning he will drive his own care to work like everyone else;

2. The new city maanger will not get any severance package.

3. The new city manager will not get a salary in excess of say $120,000.

OKAY....NEW COUNCIL....PUT YOUR MONEY WHERE YOU MOUTH IS.....I DON'T WANT TO READ 6 MONTHS FROM NOW ABOUT HOW YOU GAVE THE NEW GUY (SOMEONE "LOYAL TO YOU") ALL OF THE PERKS YOU CLAIM TO BE OUTRAGED OVER.

Jennifer...if you want to prove that your coverage is about "fighting for the people" etc. etc. and not simply about fighting for politicians whom you've taken a personal fancy towards...then make sure the new guy is not lavished with perks either.

First: They shouldn't have fired him just to go "in a new direction." What they should have done was THEIR JOB, which is articulate the new direction, and all policy concerns they wanted addressed. If Chi refused, well that would have been CAUSE, thus avoiding the severance. But, they didn't think of that. Instead they wanted to show that there was a new sheriff in town.

Second:

The last poster had some criteria for the new city manager. Let me ask you a few questions: If you were looking for a job, and there were three companies. And one had perks, higher salary and a severance package, and the other a lower salary and no perks, which one would you take?

Now add to the mix a diverse applicant pool. One applicant is qualified, educated, dedicated and comes with stellar references. One applicant has dubious credentials, allegations of corruption and ineptitude.

So, you have supply and demand. You'll have the better paying jobs being able to weed out applicants like applicant two.

And when the high paying companies with perks cherry pick the best candidates, what will be left?

The lower paying job and the crappy candidate.

Still want to institute your plan?

10:28 am Anon has it right. If Maggie and her cronies just wanted "a new direction," their job would be to articulate that new direction and hold the city manager accountable. If he doesn't do as instructed, then they can fire him for cause and not have to pay him any severence.

It's only because they want to reward their friends and cronies and don't give a wit about "direction" that they needed to force Oliver out NOW. And they were willing to pay over 1/3 of a million dollars to do it.

I think it's laughable that Maggie's brain-dead supporters are trying to hang this cost ousted council majority. I also think it's laughable that they say Oliver was somehow hired because of friendship. Who brought him to Rosemead? Andy Lazaretto, the previous city manager, who was hired by (wait for it) . . . Maggie and her cronies.

Under Oliver Chi, Rosemead discovered it was owed $1.5 million that the state owed us from a redevelopment area that Maggie and her friends voted for in 2000. Unfortunately, she and her cronies are so incompetent, they never bothered to check to see if they were getting paid the money they were owed. It took Oliver Chi and his team to get Rosemead that money. It also took Chi's team to make use of federal grants for increasing affordable family housing in Rosemead. In previous years, the city had to return that money Washington, year after year. After all, Maggie and her friends don't want "those kinds of people" living in Rosemead.

Rosemead also got an RMC grant for a new park in Rosemead, as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars in other grants (for infrastructure) that the old team never bothered to compete for.

The only possible conclusion one can draw is that Maggie is intimindated by competent, qualified staff. She wants someone she can roll like a bowling ball. She couldn't roll Lazaretto, so she was the first and loudest voice for ousting him (at a cost of another $400K!). Now she pulled the same stunt on Chi. That's over 3/4 of a million dollars, all because of Maggie's insecurity.

I pity poor Jeff Stewart. He'll have to spend all his time groveling to Queen Maggie. At the first sign of growing a spine, he'll get canned, too. I wonder how much THAT decision will wind up costing Rosemead?

Hey, "Fed Up," how much severence was written into Andy Lazaretto's severence, back when your incompetent friends were last in power? I think he got TWO years of severence at 100% of his salary.

Nice going there, eh? Way to watch the city's treasury! How lucky I feel that they are back in charge!

Either way you look at it the council and mayor made a wise decision to get rid of Chi. He was not worth his weight in good. More like a sack of rocks. Jennifer, it would be interesting to see what kind of "golden packages" other city managers get in the surrounding cities. Do a comparisson of everything that they get. Let's see who else is robbing the cities blind!

Yeah.

Let's pass laws in every city that say the city manager and everyone else who works for a city can't make more than the lesser of the median income of the city they work in or the salary of the news reporters who cover the city.

Let's pass a law says the newspaper gets to pick who sits on the city council and who gets hired because lord knows we could use the same expertise they've applied to keeping the newspaper industry viable.

Let's have a law that says if you get 10 signatures you can start a recall against anyone who you disagree with

Better yet, let's abolish all city councils and just vote on everything in the city by computer. Majority rules.

Oliver Chi brought the city much more in grants and tax revenue than he cost them in salary and benefits. That's the very definition of "worth every penny"!

His severence package was also less generous than the one the previous city manager had, and THAT contract was negotiated by the Maggie Clark-Gary Taylor majority.

Majority rules...just count to three! Each year or every two years the cities managers contract is up. The council along with the city attorney discuss it in closed session. They decide as a majority what is written into a MOU. They go back and forth deciding on what the city manager wants, and IF he is worth it. Of course there are no guarantees. They come in as if THEY know it all and have great ideas for the city, and promise to work with the entire council no matter what...but they don't. They soon fizzle out, get too comfortable, assign their work loads to other city workers, become lazy and take sides with the majority of the city council. They tend to go to every community event to get out of doing their work and enjoy their long luch hours. Then they insist in going to conferences and meetings that the council attends. They "wine and dine" the majority making sure to keep them and their guests happy. They get their room and registration and travel expenses paid for as well as a stipend and a open city credit card. They tend to charge movies, meals and bar tabs on the cities credit card. They get mileage, a car allowence, a car, a cell phone and a lap top. Life is very good in being a city manager or assistant. As Jackie Gleeson said,"How sweet it is!"

This is absolutely ridiculous!!! Highway robbery, who was stupid enough to approve this stipulation in his contract!

Rosemead, you got had with this guy and his crony hires.. and now your city coffers (and taxpayers) is out almost $400K because of this poor decision! You should check if his hires got sweetheart deals as well!

If the council knows any better, after the 90 days are up, they should consider some spring cleaning and get rid of the stench left!

Why is the new city manager getting paid more than the old city manager? THAT'S a sweetheart deal.

Why is the new city manager getting more than he made at his previous city manager job, at a city with a median household income over twice that of Rosemead? And exactly why did he leave that job? Are the rumors of sexual harrassment true?

Like I said earlier....

I wonder if the SAME people who claim to be "outraged" about Chi's compensation pacakge will be equally "outraged" if the new guy gets a similarly generous package.

I guess outrage only applies to generous benefits garnered by your political opponents as opposed to benefits garnered by your own group of cronies and hangers-on....

I mean extending compensation outrage to the latter group would be CRAZY.....

Right?

You get what you pay for!

....how about giving the people what they deserve: good leadership....leadership with politics....leadership without petty b.s.

Leadership without petty b.s.? That's not the Maggie Clark way!

Shut up sore loser!

Remember that Clark and Taylor voted "NO" on everything the three amigos tried push in their agenda.

The moral of the story, Taylor and Clark were right.... everyone should have voted NO on the three amigos!

Removing all remnants of the three amigos regime will be costly but must be done and exposed so every taxpayer understands how politics operates.

Taylor and Clark warned everyone so don't play dumb now! You should have listen to them.

The moral of this story is that Clark and Taylor don't care about wasting money if it means they can give money, contracts and jobs to their friends.

The other moral of this story is that Pravda doesn't care about wasting taxpayer money, either. Why should he? It's not HIS money that's being wasted.

It has been a while since I wasted more of my time on politics, but the truth hurts....the people of Rosemead belive the three amigos were the worst thing to ever happen to the City of Rosemead and Rosemead is paying for it.....end of discussion.

"The Truth" is delusional. End of discussion.

Your useless council majority: How's that chicken slaughterhouse? Closed, yet? The "quality" development they promised? Here, yet? All they've managed to do is waste a lot of money on symbolic, vindictive firings. Congratulations. You got the government you deserve.

This artclie went ahead and made my day.

Your cranium must be proteticng some very valuable brains.