Westlake has its new City Manager: Howard Brown!
First and foremost, let’s thank Acting City Manager Zoie Burgess for truly, madly, deeply keeping Westlake firing on all cylinders during this City Manager shake-up. And our Acting City Clerk Odet Izquierdo was the amazing woman behind the amazing woman! To the best of my knowledge both ladies will move back to their respective City Clerk and Assistant City Clerk positions for Westlake May 4th, when Mr. Howard officially takes over the City Manager position.
Now, the contract: Westlake’s ever frugal Mayor J.P. O’Connor headed up contract negotiations with Mr. Brown and it seems the two worked together to arrive at mutually acceptable terms.
To set the stage, Mr. Brown will be working for Westlake in a contractor capacity. This means that Westlake cannot provide an actual benefits package and so the arrived at salary for Mr. Brown includes a commensurate benefits package.
Westlake originally advertised the position for a salary range of $150,000-$190,000 plus said commensurate benefits package.
The finalized contract will provide Mr. Brown with an all-in salary of $265,000. Below I’ll list most of the benefits that will be baked into this salary, but first I want to assure tax payers that Mayor O’Connor did NOT sleep on these negotiations. Mayor O’Connor researched and compared every term in the contract.
As a reference, Westlake had carved out $258,000+ to Inframark for our City Manager. Given the recent inflation(s) it’s kind of amazing we snagged this GREAT candidate for $265,000 all-in.
This salary will provide Mr. Brown with:
– Membership(s) budget
– Conference(s) budget
– Payroll taxes
– Retirement contribution
– Individual health insurance
– Worker’s compensation
– Life insurance
– Vehicle and mileage for work use
– Etc.!
Acting City Manager Burgess already has Mr. Brown’s laptop and phone ready to go. So the contract ratification scheduled for April 29th at 4PM is a mere formality. Come May 4th, “Mr. Brown” will be “City Manager Brown”. We’ll be able to see him in action at May’s regular City Council Meeting on Cinco de Mayo!
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