Manager Firing Widens Council Rift in Lawndale

The political chasm dividing the Lawndale City Council has widened, with three council members forcing City Manager Daniel P. Joseph to resign last week while the other two walked out of council chambers in an unsuccessful attempt to head off the dismissal.

At 1 a.m. Friday, after a closed-door session that lasted nearly 2 hours, City Atty. David J. Aleshire announced that three members of the council--Harold E. Hofmann, Larry Rudolph and Dan McKenzie--had accepted Joseph’s resignation.

Joseph, 38, had been on the job less than 6 months. He is the second city manager in a year to be forced out and is the sixth high-ranking staffer to leave city employment since October, 1987.

The three councilmen appointed a Joseph adversary, Planning Director Jim Arnold, to serve as interim city manager while the city recruits candidates to fill its top administrative post.

In an interview after the meeting, Joseph said: “We talked about my employment and agreed that it was in our mutual best interests that I sever my relationship with the city.”

Mayor Walked Out

In an effort to prevent the firing, Mayor Sarann Kruse adjourned the meeting at 11:15 p.m. and, along with Councilwoman Carol Norman, walked out of council chambers.

Left sputtering by the departure, Hofmann took advantage of his non-elective title as mayor pro tem to continue the meeting and convened a closed-door session to discuss the city manager’s job performance.

“We’ve got a majority here and we don’t want to give them the opportunity to walk out every time a decision is to be made,” he said.

Before leaving, Kruse accused Hofmann, Rudolph and McKenzie of violating the state’s Brown Act, which they denied. The act prohibits elected officials from conducting public business in private. Kruse alleged that the three councilmen had decided privately before the meeting to fire Joseph and appoint Arnold acting manager.

She said that Gary McDonald, chairman of the Planning Commission, acted as an “agent” of the council majority, notifying the staff in advance of Thursday night’s meeting that the council majority planned to demand Joseph’s resignation. She said that one councilman, whom she did not name, told Arnold of his impending appointment before the council meeting.

Norman said the three councilmen have a “hit list” and want to get rid of women and minorities on the city staff. “I can’t be part of this kangaroo court,” she said.

In an interview Friday, Rudolph said: “There is no truth to the allegations they were making (at the meeting).” He strongly denied that the council violated the Brown Act or intends to get rid of women and minorities.

Visibly surprised by the walkout, Rudolph accused Kruse of staging “a grandstand play to get sympathy.” Still angry after the meeting, he said Kruse staged “a crybaby fit” because she is unable to get her way on the council. Kruse and Norman often are on the losing end of 3-2 votes, with the three councilmen prevailing.

After Kruse referred to McDonald as an “agent” of the majority, he stormed up to the podium and denied that he improperly had any knowledge of private council business. No special inside knowledge is necessary to find fault with City Hall, he said, “it doesn’t take an Einstein to determine that this city is not being run efficiently and for the benefit of the citizens.”

The three councilmen gave no explanation at the meeting for their decision to seek Joseph’s resignation. But at council meetings since June, when Joseph took over the $62,424-a-year job, the three have differed with Joseph’s recommendations on a number of matters, including budget priorities and allocation of personnel.

In interviews, council members on both sides said Joseph’s biggest mistake was in attempting to force Arnold to resign as planning director even though the council majority approved of his job performance.

In a confidential memo that was leaked to the press in August, Joseph said he would fire Arnold if he did not resign. “I have difficulty evaluating your work product because there appears to be so little of it,” Joseph wrote, adding that Arnold was “preoccupied” with city politics and “expressing opinions based upon how you feel the political winds are blowing.”

In an interview earlier in the week, when it had become evident his job would be on the line Thursday night, Joseph said his attempt to get rid of Arnold “was a good management decision, but not a good political decision.”

Arnold said Friday he does not want to comment publicly on the council’s decision.

Joseph, former assistant city manager of Seal Beach, will receive 120 days’ pay under a severance agreement to be presented to the council for approval Dec. 1. Joseph said Friday that it was his final day at Lawndale City Hall.

In a footnote to Joseph’s departure, council members Thursday received a letter from an administrator of the union representing rank-and-file city employees, blasting Joseph and Paula Cone, assistant city manager.

“Since Mr. Joseph arrived on the scene, the little confidence the employees felt (in) the scandal-rocked administration has been destroyed,” said Eileen M. Sullivan, who said she was writing “on behalf of the employees of Lawndale.”

The letter said Joseph and Cone “have refused to give the employees the basic rights they are guaranteed by law and by their collective bargaining agreements.”

For example, Sullivan claimed, Joseph and Cone “denied employees the right to go to medical treatment for work-related injuries during the work day.” In the letter, dated Nov. 14, she described the two top administrators as having “condescending attitudes toward employees.”

Joseph and Cone said the allegations in the letter are untrue.

And Joe Madrid, a city maintenance worker who is president of Local 690 of the California League of City Employee Assns., said in an interview Thursday that the letter was not authorized by officers or by members of the union and does not represent the views of most employees. “One or two” may be dissatisfied with Joseph and Cone, he said, but “the majority don’t think that.”

He said the letter may reflect the views of a disgruntled maintenance worker who was laid off by Joseph and has a grievance pending against the city. Sullivan, who represents the employee in that grievance case, did not respond to calls on Thursday and Friday requesting her comments.

Some City Hall sources questioned whether the letter, dated two days before the closed session on Joseph’s job performance, was politically motivated to topple him and exonerate the City Council for morale problems that have plagued the city staff.

“Morale at City Hall is at an all-time low,” one staffer said recently, on the condition of not being identified.

Hofmann, Rudolph and McKenzie contend that it has been necessary to crack down on the city staff to prevent the recurrence of serious problems that have rocked the city’s finance, planning and maintenance departments in the last 1 1/2 years.

After Kruse’s parting shot attacking the majority for conducting “a witch hunt” and failing to set long-range goals and policies, Rudolph said angrily that the council has had no time for planning because “we’re so busy cleaning up the messes created under the leadership of the person who just walked out of here.”

In an interview, Rudolph said that in spite of council efforts to clean up the city, “all we’ve done is catch hell from the mayor.” The problem boils down to the fact that “the people in the minority can’t accept the fact that they don’t get their way.”

In an interview Friday, Kruse conceded that walking out of the meeting was an extreme measure. But she said she decided to do so because she believed the councilmen had made up their minds and would not consider compromise. “The city is going to suffer,” she said. “I am sure you will see an exodus of decent, hard-working people from City Hall.”

DEPARTURES A chronology of Lawndale City Hall staff departures:

October, 1987:

*The Lawndale City Council learns of a disastrous securities investment in which the city lost $1.68 million. City Treasurer Ray Wood is fired.

*City Atty. David Aleshire issues a devastating critique of the Planning Department, citing errors by which building permits were given for projects that do not meet city codes. Planning Director Nancy L. Owens resigns and later files a sex discrimination claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. That case is pending.

December, 1987:

*After several closed-door council sessions, City Manager Paul J. Philips submits his resignation.

August, 1988:

*Maintenance Supervisor Floyd (Bud) Marez is fired and

another worker resigns amid allegations they charged to the city building materials they used on private remodeling projects. The district attorney is investigating.

*A 10-year employee, Recreation Director Brady Cherry, leaves Lawndale for a similar post in Port Hueneme.

October, 1988:

*Paula Burrier, a 7 1/2-year employee, leaves her job as Lawndale’s director of housing and community development for a job with the Los Angeles County Community Development Commission.

November, 1988:

After two closed-door sessions, the City Council accepts the resignation of City Manager Daniel P. Joseph. Planning Director Jim Arnold is named interim city manager.