Council OKs Manager's Pay With One Caveat

New city manager Chris Zapata joined the audience Tuesday night as the city council unanimously approved his $223,000-a-year contract with many words of welcome and just one caveat from a member facing re-election.

Councilman Jim Prola, who must defend his seat in November, said he liked Zapata but was "quite concerned" about what signal his salary would send as the city starts bargaining with its workers this year.

Prola expressed the hope that council members and senior staffers would make the same sacrifices that the city might ask of rank & file.

During a break Zapata told Patch that he would have to look closely at San Leandro's finances before making any statements about renegotiating contracts with city workers that expire this year.

But he answered Prola's challenge this way: "In eight years at (his former post in) National City, one employee took a pay cut and that was me."

Chris Crow & Dan Dillman confront 'status quo'

The council voted without much ado to expel Chris Crow from the planning commission before his term would have expired in November.

Crow was appointed by Councilwoman Ursula Reed, who also asked that he be removed from that post to run against her in November.

Crow spoke twice before the council, as did Bal Theatre owner Dan Dillman, who has been allied with Crow -- or vice versa -- throughout the last year in what they have characterized as a generational challenge to San Leandro's status quo.

Crow's first comments accused the city of "unethical, immoral and illogical" micromanagement of the Bal to the point of preventing Dillman from having curtains on his stage.

In his second set of remarks, Crow painted his expulsion from the planning commision as a political punishment for his council bid.

"I have chosen to seek a higher level of participation in this government apparently without permission and at an inopportune time," he said.

Dillman followed Crow to the podium twice.

The first time he asked the council to decide the core issue in his months-long struggle with city staff -- does he have a "grandfathered" right to hold live performances, or must he sign a permit that would limit those live events.

"Is there anything I have done wrong to this community?" he asked.

In his encore remarks, Dillman urged councilmembers to "put politics aside" and let Crow finish his planning commission term even if he runs for council.

The only response from the council came when Mayor Stephen Cassidy spoke to the issue of expulsion, saying each council member has the right and authority to appoint commissioners.

"It's not a guaranteed term but at the pleasure of the council member," Cassidy said.

The expulsion carried 7-0.

Curtains for the Bal?

The council made no response to Dillman's pleas on behalf of the Bal.

But after the meeting Patch questioned business development director Luke Sims, Dillman's foil in the dispute.

Sims said he had not dared Dillman to sue the city, as Dillman has repeatedly said. But Sims said the city rejects Dillman's notion that the Bal has a grandfathered right to hold live events and insists that he sign a permit that he had at one point negotiated with the staff.

Sims said the city must balance many interests when regulating businesses, among those the sensibilities of neighbors who might be awakened if patrons at the Bal, which has no parking, return to their cars after late performances and make noise.

As for the curtain issue, Sims said the Bal doesn't have a deep theatrical stage in which curtains are used to hide sets.

Instead it has what he called a platform in which such dramatic curtain arrangements are not allowed.

Saving 100 trees

After Mayor Cassidy left the meeting to travel to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the council voted 6-0 to spend $43,400 to buy 20 iPads for council members and senior staff and also set up a publicly accessible wi-fi network throughout the city hall complex.

The iPad expenditure, which accounted for $17,600 of the total, had generated some . But no one opposed the notion at the meeting.

Council members accepted a staff estimate that the iPads would enable the city to go to a paperless meeting agenda, paying back the investment in a little over three years by saving on copier leases, staff time and paper -- with the bonus of saving 100 trees. 

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