Pacheco ‘Temporarily’ Replaces Torres in Montebello
Council voted at a special meeting on Monday to make Pacheco the interim city administrator
By Elizabeth Hsing-Huei Chou, EGP Staff Writer
Many in the audience gasped as long-time Montebello City Administrator Richard Torres announced the $15,000-a-month salary of his temporary replacement, Nick Pacheco. The city council action to appoint Pacheco was among several made in a closed session meeting on Monday.
Assistant City Attorney Matt Gorman had just announced in his closed session report that Torres will officially retire on Dec. 3. Torres had notified council and staff in June of his intentions to retire.
Torres and Pacheco’s terms will overlap for three weeks. Pacheco had been serving as the interim assistant city administrator.
Pacheco will forgo benefits and severance pay as part of his contract to serve as the interim city administrator until the end of the fiscal year on June 30, 2010, Torres said. No further explanation for the decision was given during the meeting, however, Mayor Rosemarie Vasquez chose to emphasize again that Pacheco would not be entitled to benefits or severance pay. Vasquez lost her bid for re-election earlier this month, and will leave office in December, prompting some to question the timing of the decision.
The move was made to ensure a “smooth transition, and stability over the holidays,” Councilman Robert Urteaga told EGP on Tuesday.
Officials do not expect the recruitment process for a permanent city administrator, which is being handled by the Personnel Department and an outside consultant, to be completed until next March, following the recall election on Feb. 23 that could affect two council seats.
The special meeting on Monday drew residents and local activists interested in how the current city council would decide on several top personnel appointments, just three weeks before two newly elected council members and an incumbent are installed.
Some were convinced the current council intended on “tying the hands” of the new council members.
“Nobody’s really surprised they tried to pull this off. We knew that they were grooming Nick Pacheco as the city administrator, and the idea to extend the contract to June… they made it difficult for the new council majority to replace him immediately,” said local businessman Jack Hadjinian, a former chairman of the Montebello Chamber of Commerce.
Resident Steve Stokes put it bluntly: “The motives for your actions here today are completely transparent. Meaning, we see right through you. Meaning, you are looting the store as you walk out the door,” he said, addressing the council during oral communications.
Some active members of the community say they need to know more about Pacheco. “We don’t know who Pacheco is,” says Luis de la Peza, a 50-year resident of Montebello and co-chair of the Save the Montebello Hills Task Force.
The meeting was a re-scheduling of a special meeting called by Mayor Vasquez for Friday, Nov. 13, but canceled due to lack of a quorum. In addition to the closed session items, the original agenda also listed open session discussion of the budget.
Torres, in a letter dated Nov. 12, set Dec. 3, 2009 as his retirement date. He also offered to stay on longer: “In light of the current transition of the City Council and my continued willingness to serve in the best interest of the City, I hereby inform you that I am willing to change my retirement date, if that is the wish of the City Council.”
The council accepted Torres’ chosen retirement date, which is the end of a payroll cycle.
Assistant City Attorney Gorman also reported on the council’s direction to staff to extend Interim Finance Director Chickwan Tam’s term to June 30, 2010, unless otherwise specified by PERS requirements. Tam retired from his permanent position as the city’s finance director this past summer.
Gorman reported there was direction given, with no final action made, on an appointment for the vacant permanent city finance director position, as well as for the permanent city administrator, permanent assistant city administrator, and the interim assistant city administrator positions that were also listed on Monday’s agenda.
Before closing his report, Gorman added “there was discussion on another one of the positions that are listed and… I have nothing to report on that item one way or the other.”
That was when the mayor directed Torres to announce council’s decision to appoint Pacheco and the terms the council wished to offer him.
Pacheco’s actual contract has not yet been negotiated, but he said following the meeting that it would be available soon.
Councilman Bill Molinari was not present at the meeting.
Many assume that Councilmen-elect Art Barajas and Frank Gomez, and incumbent Molinari, will form a new three-person majority when they take office in December. Unofficial results for the Nov. 3 election have been tallied, but the city is awaiting the County’s certification of the votes.
Barajas said the appointments of the city administrator, assistant city administrator and finance director positions should have been left up to the new council. “I just wish, regardless of what the outcome was… I wish they would have let us make the decision,” Barajas told EGP after the meeting Monday.
“There was no reason to rush the decision to put Nick [Pacheco] in as an interim. There really wasn’t,” he added.
Councilman-elect Frank Gomez got up to speak during the meeting to urge the council not to appoint anyone yet. “A vote in the positive will be in complete disregard of your fiduciary responsibilities and will expose the city to the potential payment of many hundreds of thousands of dollars,” he said.
Pacheco defended the council’s decision, saying he would have had to serve as a defacto city administrator once Torres officially retires.
He explained his existing interim assistant city administrator contract would have made it difficult for the new council to terminate his employment if they chose to go that route.
The new interim city administrator would set a specific time for when his work for the city would end, he explained.
“A fixed contract for me seems better than my current contract which included a clause that I can only be terminated for cause. They wanted to avoid all of the internal battling that happens and you need to establish cause when you’re named an employee. This is easier on everybody ultimately,” Pacheco told EGP on Tuesday.
He added that the monthly salary he was offered is 25 percent less than what Torres receives per month.
Urteaga told EGP on Tuesday the contract is similar to the one given to the last interim city administrator, Randy Narramore.
The recruitment process for the permanent city administrator position is ongoing, he added.
He feels they did leave the decision up to the new council by voting to hire Pacheco in a temporary capacity. “The point is these are all interim positions,” said Urteaga, pointing out he will still be on the council when the changeover happens.
He accused the council-elects of playing politics. “[The decision made at Monday’s special meeting] is not being forced on anyone. I think it is time for them to be gracious winners and to really focus on policy issues rather than politics,” he said.
Urteaga acknowledges that while he knows Pacheco personally from having worked for him while he was a Los Angeles City Councilman from 1999-2003, the council “made the decision in the best interest of the city.”
If the council that voted in favor of appointing him had any ulterior motives of “protecting Nick [Pacheco], we would have made him a permanent administrator with a severance package and forced him down their throats,” he said.
Instead they wanted to make sure somebody was present to run the city while the council transitions. “Nobody is going to stay on without a contract. What if you were in his same position?” he said, adding, “He doesn’t get any benefits whatsoever… he has a lesser salary then Richard [Torres].”
Vasquez, who conducted the meeting in a business-like manner, declined to speak to EGP after the meeting, saying, “I have to leave now.” Pacheco offered to handle questions from the press and proceeded to answer quick questions from EGP following the meeting.
In a longer interview Tuesday, Pacheco told EGP he has a positive attitude toward the council. “I’m comfortable being in the middle of all this because I’m here on a short term contract. And the only way that changes is if I earn the respect and trust of the council,” he told EGP on Tuesday.
In his letter to the city council announcing his retirement date, Torres expressed his loyalty to the different city councils he has served. “In my twenty years as the City Administrator for the City of Montebello, I have always endeavored to serve disparate City Councils to the best of my abilities. I also have always fully understood that I serve at the pleasure of the City Council,” he said.
Following the meeting, several members of the audience inquired after Torres’ welfare, asking whether he was satisfied with how things turned out. Torres, a resident of Montebello, responded that he was fine. “I get to go home…. I get to sit in the audience,” he said.
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November 19, 2009 Copyright © 2009 Eastern Group Publications, Inc.
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