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Things are moving along in the contentious, ongoing story that is Morro Bay politics. Well, sort of.
On Dec. 3, the city council of Los Gatos unanimously approved hiring former Morro Bay city attorney Rob Schultz. Los Gatos is a bit of a far cry from Morro Bay; the unincorporated Bay Area town in Santa Clara County has roughly 30,000 people, according to the latest census, compared to the roughly 10,000 residents of Morro Bay.
Schultz will receive a base salary of $185,000 in his new post.
According to Los Gatos Human Resources Director Rumi Portillo, the town has recently gone through a hiring boom, advertising for job positions in a number of magazines and job websites, as well as mailing some 400 brochures to cities across the state. She told New Times that the town began screening some 90 applicants in mid-September and narrowed the pool down to 20 in early October.
Portillo said that although there’s no timestamp on Schultz’s application, he threw his hat into the pool of candidates for the attorney position sometime in mid-September.
The Morro Bay City Council first took up the issue of firing Schultz, as well as City Manager Andrea Lueker, at a special meeting on Sept. 12. The council majority still hasn’t revealed the reason behind the move. His last day on the job was Nov. 15, and he was given about nine months of severance pay amounting to about $160,000.
In other Morro Bay news, also on Dec. 3, the City Council couldn’t reach an agreement on City Manager Lueker’s separation after about an hour of closed session negotiations with special legal counsel Steve Simas. Her dismissal was initially approved on Nov. 12.
There’s been no word on when the council may take Lueker’s separation up again, but if and when she’s let go, her contract dictates that she’s to receive a similar severance package to Schultz’s.