Politics & Government

$223K City Manager Pay To Be Approved Tuesday

City Council meeting Tuesday will finalize a 3-year contract to make Chris Zapata San Leandro's top administrative officer.

The City Council will vote Tuesday night to pay Chris Zapata $223,000 a year to serve as city manager, capping a 12-month search to find a permanent officer to run San Leandro's day-to-day operations.

Zapata has been city manager of the San Diego suburb of National City, where he had earned $165,000 a year.

Former San Leandro city manager Stephen Holllister, who retired last June, in cash compensation.

Find out what's happening in San Leandrowith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Zapata's contract provides for a one-time relocation fee of $16,500. He will not get a car allowance and he will have to pay into his CalPERS pension plan.

Zapata was on January 5. Ratification of the contract is a formality.

Find out what's happening in San Leandrowith free, real-time updates from Patch.

In other action Tuesday night, the council will decide from the planning commission at the request of Councilwoman Ursula Reed who had appointed Crow in the first place.

Crow, who has filed paperwork to run against Reed for city council, is unlikely to keep his commission seat but the controversy has boosted his visibility as a council candidate.

In another potentially controversial move, council members will vote on whether to equip themselves and senior staff with iPads with 3G capability that provides Internet access anywhere.

A staff analysis says it would cost $880 per user to buy the iPads. The city would spend an additional spend $26,000 to create and maintain a public wi-fi network at City Hall. Between the iPads and the network, the total project would cost $43,400. The payoff would include reduced paper consumption and a savings in employee hours as the city moves toward "paperless" council agendas, the analysis said.

Political activist Marga Lacabe has been critical, saying most council members already have laptops or iPads, and staffers earn enough to buy their own devices.

"Yet another instance of our taxpayer money going to waste," Lacabe wrote on her Facebook page.

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