Economic Development Director Cindy Birdsill — who apparently has a Salerno style with employees and business interests — will also get a raise in her salary while she serves as Assistant City Manager until the city can name a new top administrator and Olazabal goes back to her old job — sans the 10 percent. Oh, she wanted that salary increase to be permanent, but the commission didn’t go that far.
They did, however, give her the pension break permanently. How come?
“She’s assuming a significant amount of responsibility not in her scope of work. She’ll be working a significant amount of more hours,” Commissioner Vince Lago told me about why he voted for the raise, even though he and everyone else has expressed 
concerns about her ability.
Maybe even Olazabal herself, since she said she wanted to bring former County Manager Merritt Stierheim in on a consulting basis to help her out.
“She’s going to earn the money. She’s working extremely hard,” Lago said.
Maybe he realized that he, again, would lose on a 4-1 or 3-2 vote and decided to do the easy thing and go with the flow.
But it seems they do not learn from their mistakes in the City Beautiful: When it came time to name a search firm to find a new manager, Commissioners last week chose the same firm that brought them Salerno.
Lago said that they were the most responsive throughout the process and that they had placed been successful with placements 70% of the time since 2009.
Yeah, but do those successes include Salerno?
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