Portola Valley: Town manager resigns after three years

Ok, WHAT? They convened three meetings to discuss his performance, and he asked to be fired? Am I understanding this correctly? Because paying him $200,000 plus a car allowance and vacation pay for being fired, that doesn't seem right.

He got a raise in April.

Have to say, I sure am not impressed with our Town Council these days.

I agree WTF, I smell a rat. After that last embezzlement fiasco, can we take a hard look at where our money is going, and clean up the politics in Portola Valley? Sheesh!

Not a very complimentary photo of him, to say the least.

I presume he is resigning by mutual agreement to avoid a lawsuit. Regardless of merit, these lawsuits are incredibly expensive.

I suspect the Council did the right thing. Pay him his $100k severance (half of what he was entitled to previously) and move on.

How is Portola Valley choosing these not so scrupulous characters anyway? I don't recall hearing anything about him before this.

Our volunteer Town Council works very hard to balance interests in the Town.
Criticizing them invites unnecessary conflict when the facts are confidential.
This obviously wasn't a situation they wanted to review or act on. I'd rather give them a well earned round of applause.

volunteer Town Council? They are paid $0 for meetings, etc.? Interesting.

PV residents should diligently work to make sure the town council, volunteer or otherwise, never ever enters into a contract that forbids transparency of any sort. That includes the PVSD too. We paid that 200k and are not allowed to know why he was fired? I smell a huge rat here.

The town council revealed the settlement terms of Nick Pegueros' resignation. I believe the citizens of Portola Valley deserve more than the terse announcement by the council.

It is useful to know what factors in a person's performance caused the termination so the next town manager doesn't have to leave involuntarily. This (and I am not suggesting Nick Pegueros shows any of these traits just they are typical reasons people get removed from their jobs) could range from personal appearance - see Wall Street Journal of Friday August 14th 2015 that suggests that people's looks affect their performance - to communications style with council members or town staff, to hiring style, to ways info is shared or not shared, to abusing privileges, to committing offences, to failure to meet goals, to failure to have goals, stepping beyond one's job description etc.

Usual reason for termination is not getting on with someone - so what traits or behaviors alienated Nick Pegueros from the town council? In a town that values transparency, citizens deserve a better answer.

Hiring and firing are restricted by many laws and regulations, as are communications about such actions. This protects privacy of both sides and often permits free action without the threat of lawsuits.
As a hiring manager for many years, I was often relieved that these restrictions existed, for the good of my company and of the individuals involved.
It is too easy to sit outside a situation and make judgements with incomplete information. Our Town Council is indeed a group of volunteers, doing their best and sacrificing a lot for the Town. Note the comment from Menlo Park resident, who was surprised they are volunteers. And they are at least as competent as so called professional council members in other communities.
Let's give them the benefit of the doubt and move on.

The key issue here is the lack of transparency, and not being provided with any facts. I'm not saying anyone did not do their job, I'm just saying as citizens we should be able to ask what happened and get a straight answer. If anything illegal took place, we certainly need to know. Saying let's just move on is like sticking our heads in the sand.

Nancy:

sometimes the law doesn't allow for "transparency", especially when it involves employees.

Is there a loophole that would not allow citizens to know if a city employee committed some crime while in office, or let's say a background check turned up a child molester? Not saying any of the above apply, but I feel uneasy not knowing in general terms.

Interesting to me that in today's at-will employment environment a job such as small town town manager can garner a contract that 1) pays that much and 2) provides half a year's salary severance for what appears to be a fancy term for termination. Is the job market competitive in these city management roles?

Insert the following question onto the photo of the man.....

Did you do that?

Attorneys for the parties usually require confidentiality as one of the settlement terms. The parties ultimately have to decide if "airing" their dispute in a messy and expensive lawsuit is more important than a settlement where each party quietly goes away with partial satisfaction.

Settlements can be unsatisfying to those with the luxury of hindsight observing from the sidelines. I would ask them if they are willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal and other costs in a lawsuit with the risk that your town could lose even more just to find out those messy details.

City Manager Alex D. McIntyre just appointed Nick Pegueros as the interim administrative services director for Menlo Park. Web Link

Well done, Menlo Park. Your citizens deserve the government they tolerate.

Brilliant. Let's hope interim doesn't become permanent.