Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Gambord, Knight wanted to fire Monte Sereno manager

By Clarence Cromwell

When Monte Sereno City Manager Gay Strand walked into Council Chambers for the City Council budget hearing last week, Councilmember Joel Gambord handed her a copy of his plan to fire her and make Planner Brian Loventhal city manager.

The plan, which looked a lot like the one circulated by Citizens FOR Monte Sereno a week earlier, quickly died because three councilmembers refused to support it. They saw the plan for the first time when Gambord passed out copies at the beginning of the meeting.

Arguing against the measures, Mayor Jack Lucas later pointed to the draft budget and to Strand's evaluation, conducted in a closed session minutes before the budget hearing.

"It was a favorable evaluation," Lucas said. "We are in good shape financially."

Lucas added that cutting the staff would reduce the quality of service by city employees.

Gambord and fellow councilman Gordon Knight, both of whom were elected last November, drew up a plan that would combine four jobs into two: The current building official would assume responsibilities of the city engineer, and the jobs of the city manager and planner would be combined. Loventhal could be promoted into the new position for less money than Strand currently makes as city manager, Gambord said, and both Strand and the city's part-time engineer would get walking papers. A number of temporary, hourly employees would be used to ease the work burden. (Citizens FOR Monte Sereno proposed the same reorganization, except the group proposed to use volunteers for City Hall office work and phone-answering.)

Gambord said the plan would save $76,000 a year. He declined to talk about Strand's performance for this article.

Strand refused to comment on the incident.

After the incident, the council passed the 1997-98 budget by a 3-2 vote. Gambord and Knight opposed passage of the budget because the council hadn't combined the positions as they suggested.

The city's $1.3 million budget contains no cuts and no fee increases. The city's reserve balance will grow by an estimated $119,710 under the proposed plan.

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