Introducing Coming soon to Amazon.com, The 6 Steps™ are a highly-successful approach to obtaining, evaluating and improving severance packages from public entities. A few topics covered are:
If you would like to be notified when this book is available from Amazon.com, please provide your email address in the window at the bottom of this page. Please read the Foreword to the book from Dan Joseph, retired city manager, of Mission Viejo, California |
Foreword I’ve often said that becoming a city manager is much like getting married. Whether you are standing at the altar, or you are in front of your new employers on the dais, you profess your love for one another, telling your “spouse” that you’ll do everything in your power to make the relationship last until death do you part. Unfortunately, employment as a city manager, much like marriage, frequently ends in divorce. With marriage, though, you are only joined to one individual. Becoming a city manager weds you, typically, to five spouses. And, within any election cycle, you may find out that you’re no longer married to the same individuals with whom you took vows. Anybody who has spent any time as a city manager or who has worked for any local government body knows that politics in communities change. And, whether justified or not, city managers frequently become scapegoats for frustrations, anger, and disappointments experienced by members of city councils. Often, city managers are caught in the middle of split councils who too frequently turn their animosity for each other toward the city manager. After all, it is much easier to get rid of a city manager than it is another member of the city council. Most council members with whom I’ve dealt, in over thirty years of municipal government employment, have been decent individuals who are trying their best to do the right thing for their communities. But, there are those whose motives may be different. And, just like marriage, there are a variety of reasons why the union doesn’t work. Consequently, it is important that city managers take prudent measures to protect themselves from the potential consequences of a break up. I am a firm believer that a city council has the right to change its city manager for any reason they want and at any time they want. However, if they are going to do that, the council must play fair and act with due consideration for the impact a termination will have on the departing city manager. Unfortunately, playing fair doesn’t happen anywhere near as frequently as it should. The first level of protection for any city manager is his or her employment agreement. The employment agreement should provide for the termination of the city manager, spell out how that termination will occur, and set out the severance considerations that will be given to the departing manager. If the separation is relatively amicable, that agreement by itself may suffice. All too often, however, the separation of the city manager is anything but cordial and city councils or individual council members exceed the bounds of what is fair, ethical, and legal in their efforts to rid themselves of the city manager. I was one of those beleaguered city managers. However, I was fortunate to retain the services of executive law attorney Craig Scott. He excised me from my bad “marriage” by utilizing the 6 Steps™ To A Better Deal. Craig’s 6 Steps™, outlined in this book, are an essential foundation to assist city managers who are on the verge of “divorce.” This book details numerous aspects of the severance process that one may not readily think about when actually going through a separation. Remember, when you are facing the ultimate indignity of being terminated from the pinnacle of your profession, you’re not the only one who suffers. Your family suffers, too. You need to do what is required to protect yourself, and them also, from the consequences of a bad separation. This book will help. Although reading 6 Steps™ while going through a separation would be incredibly valuable, some of its advice would probably come too late. Read this book now and be prepared. Like any insurance policy, you hope you never have to use it. But, understanding 6 Steps™ will pay off if you do. Dan Joseph |
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