San Juan Bautista City Council members approved Ed Tewes as interim city manager at this week’s meeting.
The council voted 5-0 on Tuesday to hire Tewes as interim manager to succeed Michaele LaForge, who resigned effective this week. LaForge had been on the job for about 10 months when she announced her impending resignation in February to take a private-sector job.
The city brought back Tewes, who had served as interim city manager between the previous two permanent managers, LaForge and Roger Grimsley.
San Juan will pay Tewes $10,000 per month, according to the interim city manager in an email.
Tewes’ hiring as interim manager was more of a formality since the council had already brought him on assistant city manager in the transition after LaForge announced her coming resignation.
The city plans to have Tewes on for 90 days. He will lead the recruitment for a new permanent city manager. Several candidates have stepped forward, and interviewing will start soon, Mayor Cesar Flores said.
In other related news, the council Tuesday also agreed to pay LaForge a $10,000 performance bonus. She had four benchmarks to meet in order to receive a $20,000 bonus as set forth in her contract. Since she met two of those four benchmarks, the council unanimously agreed to pay her half of the amount.
