POLITICS YOUR MONEY OR MY JOB

The public brouhaha over City Manager Richard Knight’s 10 percent pay raise completely drowned out news of the back-room politicking that was going on. Council member Jerry Bartos says he was told that Knight, in a private meeting with Mayor Annette Strauss and Mayor Pro Tem John Evans, threatened to quit if he didn’t get the raise. “And then he threw, he gestured toward them, a piece of paper,” Bartos says, “that was a job offer for a job somewhere.’”

Although council members insist the threat didn’t affect the voting, some say they were unhappy with Knight’s position. “It’s my experience,” says Jerry Rucker. “that anyone who plays it that way has already made the intellectual decision to quit.” But Lori Palmer disagrees: “That’s just the way the world works. Knight had a legitimate job offer and he told us about it. I. for one, appreciated it.”

Though few will confirm it publicly, council sources say that a contingency plan was made to hire former Dallas Deputy City Manager Camille Cates Barnett should Knight have decided to depart. “We were told she had just been hired for $110,000 by Austin,” says Bartos, “and that it would take that much to get her to Dallas.”

Rucker insists that the council didn’t feel it was being bribed, but he adds that he wouldn’t put it past Knight to try to power-play the mayor (as opposed to the council as a whole) into backing his raise. “My analysis is that Richard went to the mayor and said that he’s carried the water for her a few times and now it’s time for her to carry the water for him.”

The two cases in point, says Rucker, being the Starplex contract mess and the firing of Police Chief Billy Prince last spring. Knight wanted to make Prince an assistant city manager, but Strauss found Prince politically intolerable after he publicly criticized the council for not adequately backing the police. “In order to get [the mayor’s] chestnuts out of the fire,” says Rucker, “[Knight] had to fire Billy.” Rucker doesn’t fault Knight for the tradeoff: “I can see a guy as smart as Richard thinking this way.”

But Rucker reportedly was not above some back-room politicking of his own. According to one source, Rucker’s argument against Knight’s pay raise came down to a “What has he done for me lately?” complaint.

Knight, through a spokesperson, said, “Anyone in a highly visible position receives job offers from time to time, and I’ve had my share of them. But they didn’t have a bearing on my discussion with the council. I intend to stay as long as they feel, and I feel, that I’m an effective city manager.”

So while Knight fell short of the 20 percent raise he asked for. he did get. threat or no threat, a cool $11,122 salary increase. Not bad for a controversy-filled month’s work.