Left In Lowell

Last night City Council meeting featured a number of issues but none more critical than the discussion on the extension/successor contract for City Manager.

CC Kevin Broderick’s motion drew some interesting comments from the City Council members.

Here is a 20 minute video clip of the discussion. The motion was approved and sent to the Personnel Committee.

The LCT-produced video of the entire video is available on blip.tv at this link.

First the issue of how to proceed with the successor contract got mixed in with the manager’s compensation package. I am not sure why this happened. It was premature to bring this issue up at this time. I think it would have been better for the City Council to focus on how to do this—define the process. i.e. hire an outside lawyer; form an ad-hoc sub-committee; have the whole Council involve; once the process has been put in place and the negotiations begin, compensation will automatically be one of the components as well as goals and objectives.

Now, in effect we have councilors who already indicated that they do not want to adjust the City Manager’s salary and/or benefits. I do not think anyone should be expected to work for 3 years and at the end of that term not get a pay raise; especially someone who is doing more than a commendable job. What kind of message does this sent to the City Manager?

And as far as the other City employees are concerned, they should be the first one cheering for the CM to get a raise. If he does not get one, how is this CC, during the next two years and in good conscience going to approve a pay raise for any other City employee, union or non-union?

There were a couple of other topics of interest that were discussed. I will post on those during the next couple of days.