Playing to a nearly empty house, the Monte Sereno City Council unanimously voted last week to draw up an employment contract with City Manager Carolyn Lehr.
No audience member spoke on the subject of Lehr's contract at the April 2 meeting, although Citizens FOR Monte Sereno had cited Lehr's $71,082-a-year salary among its list of grievances against the city in a January letter.
The group expressed concern that the city is growing from a minimum-service municipality into a bureaucracy.
Mayor Nancy Hobbs said the council conceived the contract last summer, before the citizens' group surfaced. Hobbs said managers of most cities have contracts, and the council considered it a better way of doing business than the handshake understanding the city had with Lehr.
This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, April 10, 1996.
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