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$180K Salary Approved For New Lake Elsinore City Manager

Lake Elsinore City Manager Grant Yates begins work Nov. 17.

In a 4-0 vote Tuesday night, Lake Elsinore City Council confirmed the employment agreement of its new City Manager.

Grant Yates was tapped for the job last month after spending the last 21 years working with the City of Temecula where he held numerous positions including Community Relations Director, Deputy City Manager and Financial Services Administrator.

According to his new three-year employment agreement with Lake Elsinore effective Nov. 17, 2012, Yates will receive an annual salary of $180,000. The city will also contribute $915 a month toward a health and retirement account for Yates in lieu of city medical, dental and vision coverage.

In addition to 12 paid holidays and one paid personal holiday, Yates will receive 48 days per year of personal time off. Yates will also be provided with a city vehicle and is entitled to six months severance pay under the agreement.

Yates replaces interim City Manager Tom Evans who has been serving Lake Elsinore since April following the March firing of City Manager Bob Brady.

During Tuesday’s meeting, city council members thanked Evans for his professional service and welcomed Yates, who was in the audience with his wife.

Evans has repeatedly said that while he enjoys serving Lake Elsinore, he did not want the top job on a permanent basis.

City Councilwoman Melissa Melendez was absent for Tuesday's vote.

John Marshall November 15, 2012 at 08:43 pm
So let me see, we fired Brady because he was making 185,000 per year and they wanted him to go back to his 2005 salary of 135,000 per year. Then we hire his replacement at 180,000 per year. Wow, we are saving 5,000 per year!! Oh, but wait, we had to pay Brady a severance package of several hundred thousand dollars. Great job guys!! We sure saved a boat load of money!!
Constant Comment November 15, 2012 at 10:27 pm
Well actually...with the additional $915 (for health & retirement acct.) we are paying him $190,980 per year. So I guess you could say that the 'boat load of $aving$...just sunk! }~)
Roberto November 16, 2012 at 03:04 am
We then send malicious a brady conspiritor to Sacramento, sent Webless packing and still stuck with hickless and now trevi right hand man manos.
David Pereira November 16, 2012 at 04:27 am
This guy has a lot of experience, Give him a chance you vultures.
John Marshall November 16, 2012 at 05:18 am
@ david it is not about the experience he has or how good of a job he might do. The problem is we fired a guy that was making 5k more per year in base pay and payed him a nice severance package to "save money" and then hired this guy for essentially the same amount. It was a bone head move and shows that the city has no problem wasteing tax payer dollars on salaries while making cuts to bus service for kids.
D A November 16, 2012 at 12:29 pm
John I hate to Disappoint you but school district cut bus services, not the city. School district need a whole new set of comments but that's not this article
John Marshall November 16, 2012 at 12:58 pm
D a sorry i was mistaken. It happens every once in a while. I thought i had remembered the city council having something to do with it. Regardless the main point of wasting taxpayer money still rings true.
Lepimpster November 16, 2012 at 01:39 pm
I agree we must give Yates a chance, however we must not forget what our council is doing with our tax money like John is pointing out. The personal vendettas and self interest chit needs to stop. Do what your paid to do and put the city in your best interest.
D A November 16, 2012 at 03:20 pm
John you are close.... the City staff, school district and and police department did meet to discuss safety issues and some type of resolution/alternatives to the busing issue. Sometimes the way things are written they can becomes convoluted and misunderstood by design..
John Marshall November 16, 2012 at 03:59 pm
D A, This article has nothing to do with busing. I don't know where you are seeing that. This is all about hiring a new city manager. The old one was fired to save us money. Of course they had to pay him the rest of his contract. The old city manager was making $185,000 per year. The new guy will be making $180,000 per year. Not much in savings. I hope the new guy is good as David says. I am NOT badmouthing the new guy, just the process! Why don't we admit there was a power struggle going on in the city council. Hickman won! He got rid of one of his biggest detractors.
Roberto November 16, 2012 at 04:02 pm
Vultures? The only vultures I saw were the opportunist Webless, Hickless and Malicious.. None of us have an issues with the new city manager and wish him well. We do have a problem with councilpersons throwing away tax dollars on ego gratification and ethical issues such as firing a city manager in th middle of a voted in contract once they got the dupe appointed. I'm sure Mr Yates will do a fine job just like Bob Brady even if this is his first job as a City Manager.
ron November 16, 2012 at 05:32 pm
190K not shabby considering you all forgot addition perks. 30k for new vehicle, gas card, business credit cars which they all use for personal reasons about 20k more a year ect..... So figure he actually makes more than 5 full time city workers. Hey greedy Yates take a 40K pay cut and put towards roads and parks. All you greedy politicians take a 15% cut and put towards schools and parks.
Kathleen Hamblin November 16, 2012 at 06:09 pm
I read that Yates helped Temecula boom into an Orange County world, which to me is an over developed and sterile enviornment with greedy self serving politicians. I hope that isn't what he has plans to do with Lake Elisnore. He is dealing with a whole different ball of wax. We are not Temecula or Murrieta nor do we want to be!!!
D A November 16, 2012 at 10:54 pm
John your the one that brought up busing. I just filled in the blanks .

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Bd June 17, 2013 at 11:14 am
It would be hard to prove a negative. Are you insinuating that the money for additional policeRead More protection was wasted? Seems like simple logic to me that increased police presence over time would result in less crime, which would in-turn lead to more tourism, which would bring in more money for the City. Laguna Niguel is ranked every year as one of the safest cities in the U.S. Since there's so little crime there, why do they waste their money on any police at all???
LAKE ELSINORE RESIDENT June 17, 2013 at 12:45 pm
I want to see more cops on the street and I want to know if there was less crime.. I think weRead More need more police and I believe the PSAC is a waste of money, money which could go towards more police (no matter how small).
American Girl June 17, 2013 at 04:56 pm
EVMWD rates are a crime! Take those darn pensions away and lower our rates. Over paid slackers!
lotsahelp June 17, 2013 at 05:51 pm
@what- I think it is funny that you write your comments on the same day that a blogger acts like aRead More teenager and writes a blog complaining about a facebook page(leading people here). Not sure how that is useful to the community. Many of you that think you speak for the "citizens of Wildomar" on EVERYTHING. Not only is that not true but those making who think they speak for all of us get offended when people disagree with them or don't think everything they say is true. Fortunately they are not quite as well-know as some may think- I have been here 20+ years and guess what? their names never come up with the people I know. Please remember that unless you are elected You speak for yourselves- and that is fine but just stop kidding yourselves that you are doing it for everyone. ___I often agree with Martha and even when I don't I understand where she is coming from. But mean spiritedness and a constant bleating of criticisms without willingness to compromise is not what this city needs.
LAKE ELSINORE RESIDENT June 17, 2013 at 06:26 pm
Martha you should contact the police it sounds like Kevin Is Stalking You. seriously
Martha L. Bridges June 17, 2013 at 08:22 pm
LER, thanks for your concern. I am very aware of the danger and have already taken my concerns toRead More the police and the city. If they are unwilling to take corrective or preventative measures, I will move up the ladder to those who understand their obligation to protect citizens from this kind of threat.
Kevin Jon Sax June 15, 2013 at 09:55 pm
Ken Mayes, what sin? Have I harmed anyone? Do tell. Harming people is not in my value system.
Martha L. Bridges June 16, 2013 at 08:24 am
LER, you have offered me good advice, and I am going to take it to heart and close out myRead More contribution to this article with this one last comment. In short, enough has been said on all sides and it is time to return to my very real work of trying to help fix what is wrong in Wildomar. There is plenty of real work to be done.
Gil Rasmussen June 16, 2013 at 10:02 am
The original intention of Wildomar Magazine, when I initiated publication at the same time thatRead More Wildomar became a city, was to provoke people to think for themselves. A side benefit of publishing a provocative commentary occurs when public officials, such as Planning Commissioner Bobby Swann and Citizens Park Oversight Committee Chairman John Lloyd, are provoked to express their true feelings, as well as their mental and ethical shortcomings. Calling citizens of Wildomar by the derogatory name, "Stoops," is direct evidence of their mental and ethical shortcomings, as well as beneath the dignity of an appointed position with the City of Wildomar. We have the WILDOMAR.CA.LOCALS Facebook page to thank for the beneficial "self-disclosures" by Swann and Lloyd.
Ken Mayes June 15, 2013 at 06:55 am
The city is so excited they forgot to put this event on the cities website.
Rose Vicente June 15, 2013 at 09:16 am
Why not a parade in the streets?
Martha L. Bridges June 15, 2013 at 07:20 pm
Rose, we've had five years of having celebrations large and small with all the trappings ofRead More city-hood that Bridgette Moore could conjure up - right down to spending money the city didn't have to purchase monogrammed M&M. I suggest it's time to ring the bell and then get back to the real work of running the city. That would include doing the essential foundational work that has been skipped over in favor of window dressing and nonsense for the first five years.
scott osborne June 13, 2013 at 12:07 am
not to mention the day before someone hit a parked car on the same street, don't worry police showedRead More a good 50 min later, Wildomar needs a discount from the sheriffs dept for sure
Toni McAllister (Editor) June 12, 2013 at 05:02 pm
Yes ... Thanks for the reminder Tammi ...Read More http://lakeelsinore-wildomar.patch.com/groups/schools/p/lakeside-high-school-pool-open-to-public-through-aug-2
Barbara Dye June 13, 2013 at 12:02 am
Thanks Toni. I was just going to leave Tammi a comment about it.
BLUESGUITAR777 June 11, 2013 at 10:16 am
That place is weird. Cult like almost in their practices. The holding out the last note of everyRead More worship song to "invoke the spirit" is just totally unnecessary. I was glad to leave.
lotsahelp June 6, 2013 at 12:34 pm
TY for catching this!!!
Jeff Greene June 8, 2013 at 09:57 am
To be clear, Supervisor Jeffries is not yet in support of charging for parking at the hospital, butRead More supported Supervisor Stone's request to have it evaluated, and is willing to consider it based on the results. In his quotes that day he mentioned that when Kaiser started charging for their new structure, they almost immediately changed their mind because the response was so negative. Supervisor Jeffries' main interest in supporting a study of all the county's parking facilities was to determine whether we could save money on the parking structures we already charge for by going to an automated system, rather than staffing it full time with multiple county employees. We have been told that we are actually losing money on the fees we collect for parking, and if that is true, we want to either switch to a cheaper collection system or eliminate the fees entirely.
Chris Twining June 13, 2013 at 12:55 am
Let's hope not. Charging for parking, especially at a hospital, is disgusting to say the least. IRead More got an idea. Let's see if just one elected official can so SOMETHING!!! other than sitting around trying to figure out more and more ways to separate us from our money. Do you have a clue as to what's going on around you? Do you get out of bed in the morning? turn on the TV? go outside? You are 10 years too late. That kind of thing from elected politicians is over. Stop trying to raise money. There are so many things out there you could be doing to make a good name for yourself, and 99% of those things involve cutting spending. Get to the bottom of some things. Imagine how people would react to that. They would swarm at your feet and hold you in high regard. And if you ever find yourself in the hospital, I will gladly come visit you as long as I dont have to pay to park.
some guy June 7, 2013 at 11:00 pm
keep it up man, if my kids were a bit older i would use you without a doubt... good luck
Steve Newman June 6, 2013 at 04:01 pm
Too late to move now- there goes the hood
American Girl June 7, 2013 at 09:41 pm
Shane and Martha probably had to change their underwear
Tombo0055 June 9, 2013 at 07:08 am
He almost melted when he stepped off AF one into 110 degree heat but he should be used to it whereRead More he came from.
Elsinore 33 May 29, 2013 at 07:33 am
It is the same council person who had the city manager move next door to her in order to secure hisRead More job. It didn't last long because Melissa fired him for being lazy and not doing anything for all the years he held the CM position. The CM tried to get this Council person appointed but Melissa would have none of it. Melissa is tough as nails, good job Melissa, the lady Roberto talks about is the same person who now approves this former Council person. How wack is that! Make up your mind and I get my documents from City Hall, the new CM is all too happy to give me what I want..
Elsinore 33 May 31, 2013 at 06:29 am
Th eperson who bought the documents and won the qui tam lawsuite is Edith Stafford. She has decadesRead More of documents and exposes corrution in Lake Elsinore and even makes a few bucks with winning a qui tam lawsuite. I forgot about how valuable Edith is to exposing corruption! LER and Roberto..talk anonst yourself, you are the same eprson! Do you agree that Edith Stafford is the greatest exposer of corruption to have lived in Lake Elsinore. The fact that she won money in a qui tam law suit proves she is the greatest person the shout the truth to live in Lake Elsinore. No one has done more to expose corrution.
LAKE ELSINORE RESIDENT May 31, 2013 at 09:07 am
ROTFLMAO, now for you viewing pleasures the questionable antics of Lake Elsinore's government inRead More action. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-psji9pAoI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nabtSQHyzCE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T2u8WsqbYM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m_HypxyudI