By Daniel Langhorne, Special to the Independent
The Laguna Beach City Council took flak from residents Tuesday for approving a 5 percent raise for City Manager John Pietig over the next two years.
Pietig is already set to earn a previously approved pay raise of 2.25 percent on July 1, which will put his salary at $279,828 for the 2019-20 fiscal year, said Gavin Curran, director of administrative services. Mayor Bob Whalen and City Councilman Peter Blake served on a subcommittee to review Pietig’s compensation and both agreed he is doing a great job.
“I’ve seen a lot of city managers in my professional life in other locations, and John…works nights and weekends,” Whalen said. “That’s above and beyond what I see oftentimes.”
Some residents argued that the City Council should only award Pietig bonus pay for exceptional work or salary increases if he exceeds clearly defined criteria that are made available to the public.
Whalen pointed out that Pietig provides tremendous value for the city by overseeing its interaction with regional agencies like Caltrans, South Orange County Water Authority, and the California Coastal Commission. He specifically pointed to $1 million in attorney’s fees recovered from a lawsuit with the Mouton-Niguel Water District, regarding payments for the Coastal Treatment Plant.
Laguna Beach resident Michèle Monda was strongly opposed to giving Pietig a raise based on exceptional performance, arguing he’s wasted the public’s money by promoting a failed ballot measure to fund undergrounding utility lines and other fire safety upgrades. She’s also disappointed that it’s been 26 years since the city solicited bids for its trash-hauling contract.
“From my perspective, I see a city manager that has not husbanded my tax dollars well,” Monda said.
At the City Council’s strategic planning session in February, Pietig and senior staff shared a list of projects for the coming year and council members provided feedback on what should be prioritized. Whalen said Pietig’s performance is partly judged based on how much progress is made on these tasks. He admitted that the city could do a better job of communicating how the city manager is graded on the completion of these strategic goals.
Before taking the city’s helm following the retirement of former city manager Ken Frank in 2010, Pietig served as an assistant city manager for Laguna Beach for nine years. Pietig’s lengthy tenure with the city has put him at the top of the pay scale among his peers in Orange County, Whalen said.
Dana Point city manager Mark Denny is paid about $225,000 per year to manage a city of nearly 34,000 residents. San Clemente city manager James Makshanoff is paid about $277,000 per year to manage a city of more than 69,000 residents.
Councilman Blake turned 55 years old this week, and he recently learned many government employees also retire at this age. He thought it was appropriate to pay Pietig more as the city staffers spend more time preparing to review several controversial developments.
“I start to look around and we could be potentially transitioning some of our top and key employees in our community, and I wanted to incentivize John to just go out of his way,” Blake said.
Gavin pointed out that Pietig is receiving the same increases awarded to management employees and the municipal employees association. Both associations are receiving a 2.25 percent bump in pay on July 1; a 2.5 percent increase on July 1, 2020; and a 2.5 percent increase on July 1, 2021.
Councilwoman Sue Kempf said she’s pushing Pietig and his senior staffers to implement strategies she learned in the private sector to make city hall more efficient and reduce spending.
“You can talk about how the money is spent, but the city is very well run financially,” she said. “Overall, my experience with John over the last nine years, and more intensely now, has been overall pretty good.”
