“It would not make sense to talk about ‘what if this passes?’” she said. “You don’t do that until it passes.
“Why would you develop a strategy when you don’t know whether the event will take place?” she asked.
“It has not been determined whether they would go through a formal recruitment to hire a city manager or would automatically change Jerry Fulwood into a city manager.
“How it would be orchestrated is something that would come before the Council.” July 1, the start of a new fiscal year, is the official transition date.
Which Solution Is Best?
To the question of which solution she favors, Ms. Gross said, “I haven’t thought it through that much. I don’t want to comment now.
“Jerry is not appointed the City Manager. He would have to be appointed by the City Council,” by a simple majority.
Ms. Gross said that a vote on Mr. Fulwood for City Manager would “not necessarily” result in the same three to two outcome as last January’s vote approving a new contract.
“For one thing,” she said, “there will be at least one new Council member (when the Council decides on Mr. Fulwood). Second, there will be a question, a legitimate question, as to the contract in January with Jerry, which was for CAO. We did not contract with Jerry as the City Manager.”
At the time of the contract agreement, Ms. Gross said a potential transition to City Manager was not brought up because “it is not appropriate to have such a discussion with an employee.”
Having been presented with a new three-year contract that takes effect in June, when the present agreement expires, Mr. Fulwood’s standing has not been an issue previously during the three-month campaign.
In light of the CAO’s new contract, Ms. Gross was asked what a reasonable scenario would be for Wednesday morning if Measure V wins.
“This would be an interesting thing,” she said. “There are options. You can pay him six months salary and cancel the contract. (Or) you can negotiate something with him.”
More precisely, Ms. Gross would expect the city staff on Wednesday morning “to put together an analysis of all the issues and policy questions that we would need to answer.”
The nature of the questions, she said, “would depend on how we decide to go, such as if we decide to go out and do recruitment for a City Manager. In that case, if Jerry applied, we would look at his fitness along with the fitness of any other candidate. Or we could choose to stay with Jerry.”
Three Views From Other Side
Disagreeing sharply with Ms. Gross, two City Councilmen wonder what the fuss is about. “My understanding,” said Steve Rose, “is that when we voted a contract extension for Jerry in January, it was to be, in my opinion, the CAO or the City Manager.”
Said Alan Corlin: “Changing Jerry from a CAO to the City Manager would be the biggest nothing anyone ever has seen. It’s as simple as changing signs. It would be so invisible that nobody outside of City Hall would be aware of it. Inside City Hall, they would only be slightly aware. I mean, we just re-upped him for three years.”
In sync with the Councilmen, Andy Weissman, who led the Charter Review Committee, is convinced that Mr. Fulwood believes he will continue as the city’s chief executive, regardless of the election results.
All ten members of the Charter Review Committee presumed, when they were reshaping the Charter last year, that Mr. Fulwood would seamlessly transition from CAO to City Manager, Mr. Weissman said.
He expressed surprise at Ms. Gross’s claim that no plan exists for finding a city manager if Measure V wins.
“When the Council signed Jerry to a new contract, I would have thought somebody would have had the foresight to say:
‘You know this is on the ballot in April. There is as much chance that it will pass as not. What’s going to happen April 12 if we no longer have a CAO form of government?’
“It is mind-boggling to think that has not been thought through. I can’t believe nobody has given any thought to what happens if Measure V passes.
“Our elected officials have a responsibility to be pro-active and not reactive. It would be unfortunate if the measure passes and the day after, everyone throws up their hands, like Robert Redford did in ‘The Candidate,’ and say, ‘Okay, what do we do now?’
“One of the fundamental premises behind the Charter review,” Mr. Weissman said, “was to invest as much authority in the elected officials as was practicable and not put things in the Charter that were going to be constraints and handcuff them in the future. What they do for a transition is completely up to them.”
Late yesterday afternoon, Mr. Fulwood told thefrontpageonline.com that it is “my understanding” that transitioning from CAO to City Manager is as uncomplicated as “changing the signs.”
Her Objections to Measure V
From the outset, Ms. Gross has been a strident opponent of the Charter Reform measure. Throughout the Candidate Forum season, she has frequently represented the Con side of the Measure V debate, memorably one night against against former Councilman Steve Gourley. He was one of her two nominees to the Charter Review Committee.
Her main argument against V is that it would incur unaffordable costs.
“Here is one of the issues I have raised repeatedly in forums,” Ms. Gross said. “We all know how busy Jerry Fulwood is now. If he is taking on being responsible for all of the department heads, he is going to do the same thing they do in other cities: Have several deputy city managers. That is about a quarter of a million dollars.
“With his salary, as opposed to the average salary of city managers, he would be looking for another $30,000.”
