When it comes to community, it is important we all voice our concerns over how chosen leaders and employees perform in their capacity. It is now time for West Hollywood's City Manager Paul Arevalo to have his job performance review. The Closed Session is set for 6:30 p.m. Thursday in the first floor Community Room of City Hall. Sniff sniff. I smell Bell hell coming down the street.
This meeting is not under the Brown Act, as Mr. Arevalo is an employee and is entitled to have a closed session meeting versus a review in front of the public. Hence, public opinion most definitely can be expressed during this time while being heard by the Council. What other times do we have to focus on discussion surrounding the performance or the lack there of, of Mr. Arevalo.
When reviewing the 2011-2012 budget submitted by Mr. Arevalo, it is noted the City Manager manages to make $568,402 in salary with fringes covering retirement, social security and payroll taxes. With such a small city reaching 1.9 miles of area, I have to question the exorbitant amount being paid to this hired official overseeing the community at large?
As I have stated before, there is a sense of Bell going on in West Hollywood. The Sacramento Bee points to its database where you can look up various salaries of California City Managers.
Back in August 2010, the Los Angeles Times wrote an article revealing the fact Weho's salary for City Manager makes it the highest per capita salary in the country: "The Times' analysis found cities with more residents and larger budgets tended to pay their chief executives more, but the exceptions were more notable than the rule. West Hollywood, a city of 36,000, had one of the county’s highest payouts: Paul Arevalo earned $285,496 last year."
Not only was Arevalo's 2010 payout one of the highest in California, but it also tops the nation in highest paid City Manager's. The corruption of the City of West Hollywood is supported if not established by Arevalo. Take notes folks, because tonight you are able to question the actions of this man and the allowance by the City Council members.
I am not sure where the Sacramento Bee and Los Angeles Times got the information pertaining to Mr. Arevalo's salary—perhaps the foolish fodder the City feeds people and organizations. But when I look at the West Hollywood 2011-2012 budget, I am faced with much different figures than those reported to the paper, back in 2010.
With the budget presenting figures for City Manager Salary for 2007-08, it states $502,108; 2008-2009 $573,626; 2009-2010 $580,746; 2010-2011 $559,410 and for 2011-2012 he is being paid $568,403 for his services and including the fringes I mention above. He is averaging $2,255 per business day.
A detail from the 2011-2012 budget lining the City Manager Position Salary can be found at modernhomesla.blogspot. For a hired gun, isn't there someone else less corrupt, better with his/her job and more affordable?
As unbelievable the first estimate of his annual income was to me (let alone the increasing to a much larger sum), that fact should be made known, but then the focus should be on weather his work performance is acceptable to the City and its best interests. As outrageously high his salary appears to me, clearly you and probably most people, the base a serious question about a person competency and performance in the salaried position working for the City. When everyone focuses on the exact dollar amount, the real issues get blurry. Kind of like the 'hitting back' to what have been numerous articles and countless opinions (from me alone - a lot) posted by so many about the entire Library Issue and problems, suddenly a strong statement breaking down the $64 Million Dollar price tag we were told was the cost. $64, $21, $11, or $1 Million ... the issue was with the problems with the process, the structure, the appearance and the aesthetics, all of which were claimed to be the product of resident input. The issues suddenly stopped, a few people continued to debate the actual cost, and the real issues were skirted by the City through a 'by the way your figures are wrong' response. Let's not quibble about how overpaid he is, just know that we think he is and then question his work/performance.
A) i am extremely unhappy with the city manager's "performance" as far as i can see (spending bonanza, zero transparency, no accountability, actively preventing input from the public as well as from commissions, etc, etc...) B) his salary is grossly and utterly out of any conceivable proportion. no wonder our parking tickets have gone up dramatically. Thank you, Steve Ward, for posting this little nugget. I hear that pitchforks are on sale at Home Depot!
As I appreciate your interest into the matter, I would like to point out that each staff individually has a line in the budget. Again, Mr. Arevalo's line for HIMSELF is $568,403 which includes 'fringes', i.e. social security, taxes, payroll processing, pension. Fringe does not mean "Staff Member" salary covered under this line item. Please do not create more confusion over this as Mr. Arevalo can explain this himself. Continue reviewing the budget and you will see a slew of office management staff salaries being recorded. If the Salary line of the budget for Mr. Arevalo does not reflect his, and only his, we have bigger problems, because he's the one that created it in the first place! Even if Mr. Arevalo made the assumed $275K per year, where does all the other money go to because it is quite a windfall of fringes being given to him. That is a whopping $293,403 to process that guy's paycheck. Again, that's some serious 'fringe' going on. With the advent of Bell, not sure why folks wouldn't question some of these basic fundamentals of local government. We all should have examined his salary last year when it was presented to us and questioned, but while the City Manager faces his review this evening, why not bring it to light. It's called democracy. :-)
Glad to see you have some very high priced interns working for Arevalo. It is really working. Keep on going over budget and definding yourself in legal battles that still to this day have ramifications on the community as they are the ones to kick in the dollars at YOUR expense for a lack of proper oversight. The amount of $568,403 for a fulltime staff person and interns is a bit absurd. Why not just tell the community and break the numbers down so there is no confusion or any further suspicion into the smell of Bell. I understand what 'fringes' are and cannot get around the simple math of what this guy takes home AND after he gets done ruining the city and retires with a big fat pension attached. There are 37,000 thereabouts living in the CIty of West Hollywood. West Hollywood spans 1.9 miles. How can anyone justify a City Manager making anything over the median? Just read the LA Times article which states WeHo pays their City Manager silly cash. So, in your response to this particuar post, please do some further research. I did. Arevalo must GO! ...or at least stay awake during meetings. We certainly deserve that much for his paycheck. If you want to be an authority, state some real figures and let us ALL know how the salary for the paid employee from Pasadena is broken down?
Wouldn't it have been easier to just provide the link on the citys web site to the salary numbers? I'll just share it for everyone to see: http://www.weho.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=8209 PS As a rep of the city could you please identify yourself with a name?
I'm still concerned that Mr. Arevalo chooses to live in Pasadena, not West Hollywood. I'm sure it's because he and his wife believe Pasadena has a better public school system for their children (assuming they have them). If WeHo is such a bad place to send your kids to public schools, maybe if he lived here, he may have done more to enhance the local schools or make the city safer.
Speaking for my numerous harsh criticisms of our City Council Members, I don't actually believe that in their own personal lives, they are not friendly, outgoing and kind people who love and are loved. When we share or frustration with the professional conduct, it becomes almost too easy to fall into the 'group' or 'mob' mentality and loose site they they are people with a career, which they don't want to or can afford to lose I always which that the reality of that fact would result in people (in general) realizing they may have severely erred in the past, and the criticism becomes a wake up call to quickly change and start to do the right thing. Never seems to happen that way. Seems human nature causes people to hunker down and commit to their story so tightly, that it ends up causing more and worse decisions to snowball. Anyway, to dwell on 'hate' does nobody any good. I only post criticisms, but for the record, don't know any of the Council Members personally and assume they are nice people outside the politics of weho.
I just saw the 'draft' minutes of the same meeting, and smack in the middle of the minutes, where there was a very egregious decision to vote knowing it was not legally proper to in that situation, there is now a one liner in bold indicating the next matter was voted on in a closed session, then the minutes resumed as normal ..... but with the actual formal vote that was taken gone from public record. Is this common? Does anyone know if it is allowed? It seems wrong to me, but I don't have any actual knowledge on the subject.
Or let's multiply the citizens who live here by $10k a head to see if the city manager makes more of less then Obama. What about the grim reaper Lindsey I heard she's lurking on the transportation commission waiting for someone new to die so she can further political career. How about Abbe Land becoming CEO of the Trevor Project for 250k plus expenses and benefits. Going to move all that social service & developer money from Saban to Trevor. Duran launched his bid for re-election & he needs $500 a head if you got it .. give it to him. Prang's not in the same hurry since he's sitting pretty with everyone right now. YAWN