Two new ‘high-paid’ deputy city managers in Atwater, union says

Atwater City Council narrowly approved the first phase of the interim city manager’s plan to try to get the town to economic solvency, but not without pushback from an employee union.

The council voted 3-2 on Monday to elevate two employees to newly-designed deputy city manager positions. Mayor Jim Price and Councilman James Vineyard cast the two “no” votes, and have previously questioned the wisdom of paying the higher salaries that come with the positions.

Interim City Manager Art de Werk has pitched the idea to install deputy city managers because they bring “institutional memory” to a city that’s had a revolving door of six city managers since about 2012.

“That is excessive for an organization, particularly one that’s struggling financially and going through other kinds of growing pains,” he said.

Those promotions went to Lakhwinder Deol, who has been in the finance department since 2014, and Lori Waterman, the interim director of community development whose worked for the city since 2006.

Designing those higher-paying positions, in a city that has furloughs on Fridays for most of its employees, gave some reservations to AFSCME local 2703. The union represents clerical and miscellaneous employees, according to local representative Mary McWatters. She said there was no personal objections to Deol or Waterman, but rather to the deputy positions themselves.

“We’re creating two high-paid positions and our people are still on a 10 percent pay cut and furloughs,” she said.

The deputy positions make between $127,404 and $162,603 per year plus benefits, according to the salary schedule.

The city of Atwater continues to operate with a general fund debt of more than $2 million and has other unfunded liabilities. City leaders have struggled to prove its solvency and some have worried publicly that the state could take over control of the city of about 29,000.

The city came close to declaring bankruptcy in 2012.

Councilman Paul Creighton stressed the importance of establishing some stability in the city, saying de Werk came into the job with little or no information from previous administrators.

“He’s having to create everything from scratch,” Creighton said. “He went into an office that is empty ... No historical files. Nothing.”

De Werk’s contract is up in June, and it remains unclear if the City Council will ask him back or move onto yet another city manager. He started in January after the city conducted a yearlong search during the tenure of two other temporary city managers.

Councilman Brian Raymond repeated a mantra he’s used as city leaders try new ways to improve the city instead of spinning their wheels.

“If you always do what you’ve always done, you always get what you always got,” he said. “This is going to take us in a different direction so we can hopefully break that cycle of insanity.”

Phase two of the city manager’s plan is set to be presented 2-5 p.m. Wednesday at the Atwater Communoty Center, 760 E. Bellevue Road.

This story was originally published March 27, 2018 at 4:07 PM with the headline "Two new ‘high-paid’ deputy city managers in Atwater, union says."