Sacramento’s new mayor and council need to lead and tell their manager to follow | Opinion

The Sacramento City Council desperately needs to press the reset button in its relationship with City Manager Howard Chan, who has repeatedly defied the council and the City Charter in various actions in recent months.

For newly-elected Mayor Kevin McCarty and the two new council members who take office Tuesday, that recess process begins with its very first agenda item. Outgoing Mayor Darrell Steinberg left a stinker of a proposal for the new council’s first order of business, to extend Chan’s employment contract for a full year without giving the council time to adequately review the contract or Chan’s performance.

The new council should swiftly decline against shackling itself to another one-sided contract that has historically served the city poorly. It’s the only way for McCarty to truly take power as mayor, rather than to perpetuate the Chan Administration.

That this is even on the agenda is a sign of the weakness of the previous mayor and council. It was in May of 2021 when the Council unanimously agreed to extend Chan’s contract through this calendar year, but everyone knew at the time that the plan was to give a new mayor and a new council a clean slate on how best to move forward. Howard Chan himself signed on the dotted line.

Why isn’t a deal a deal?

The problem was that Chan wanted more and that neither Steinberg nor the council could say “No.” The following year, in 2022, the council granted Chan 64 additional weeks of paid leave that he could convert into cash at any time. The extraordinary perk has made Chan the highest paid city manager in California for two years running.

The increasingly lopsided employment agreement, without a single performance standard whatsoever, has translated into a lopsided power relationship. Chan has grown to act as if he were both above the council, the city charter and even state law.

He appears to have violated the state public meeting law at least twice, once last December when he hastily placed his raise on an agenda, then again in June when he privately lobbied the full council for a raise. Then over the summer, he failed to present his office’s annual achievement report to the full council and to complete council-mandated diversity training.

Then in October, according to the private analysis of the City Attorney, he wrongly substituted his approach to racial equity in the city over that unanimously recommended by a Council committee.

This new council is being forced to deal with Chan’s contract because the last council did not have enough of a spine to stick to the original deal it struck in 2021. The old, weak council is forcing this new council to act on Chan’s contract this year as its first act of business, rather than to allow the new council members to approach the matter with thought and wisdom.

Having no contract would not terminate Chan’s employment. He would have all the vacation and civil service protection of a senior city employee. But he has privately threatened to resign based on several accounts; that would be his choice, not the city’s.

And if six of nine council members voted to let him go and let the city move on, that would be their choice.

What matters now is for a new mayor and a new council to start business on its terms, without leftover baggage from the Steinberg era. That can only happen by tabling what to do about a bad city manager contract until it is ready to do so.

In the meantime, rest assured: In Sacramento, the sun does not rise and set thanks to Howard Chan.