We occasionally get emails from Indio with news of former Claremont City Manager Glenn Southard, who's taken his act down the road. It's fascinating for those who've had an opportunity to watch Southard in action here to see him repeating the same manipulations in his new town.
The Desert Sun newspaper today covered Southard's annual performance evaluation. The Indio City Council voted 4-1 to give Southard a raise to $300,000 per year, along with a $20,000 bonus. Bill Mathis, Southard's facilitator of choice, was on hand in Indio for the evaluation.
As we've noted before, Southard's problems with councilpeople have followed him to Indio, which seems to indicate that the problem was him, not any particular councilperson here or in Indio. In Indio, a councilperson named Mike Wilson has been fighting Southard and the other four councilmembers there. Southard's also been butting heads with a developer named Richard Weintraub.
We think Southard's fights with the public and with elected officials who question him are an inevitable outcome of his political/management philosophy, a thing we've come to call "Southardism."
Here's the latest email from Indio:
Glenn Southard received a salary increase to $300,000.00 plus a one time bonus of $20,000.00 dollars at tonights Indio City Council Meeting. This was based on his performance evaluation mediated by the all too familiar Bill Mathis. He was paid a consulting fee of $6,000.00 plus for a binder of questionnaire responses from 4 councilmembers. The vote was 4-1 with Councilmember Wilson dissenting. Councilmember Wilson refused to participate in the Bill Mathis-Glenn Southard buddy system and called them out on it publicly. Southardism is alive and well in Indio. Councilmember Wilson asked Southard during the meeting to step down to the aisle and we'll fill it with water so he can walk on it. Southard was not a happy man after that even though he received a $60,000.00 dollar raise. I'm sure the Southard attacks on Wilson will heat up again. Indio and its four Councilmembers (excluding Wilson) has made a millionaire of Glenn Southard and fools of themselves. Stay tuned for the Community fallout on this one.
Let's all be thankful that there's no Lemon Law for city managers. Indio might have a cause of action against the people of Claremont for a failure to disclose information and for the resulting infliction of Southard and Southardism on their fair city.
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