Squid gives departing King City City Manager Michael Powers a big oozy hug—and wonders where he's going next.

Corruption Costs…Sometimes a pal or a reader or a not-yet-jaded intern will ask Squid for some career advice. Squid’s no expert, and offers the usual tips: Peruse the Weekly’s bestofmontereybay.jobs (shameless plug). A couple weeks ago, Squid also starting advising folks to play the lotto regularly, in light of recent events. And now, Squid will also start telling pals to peruse some excruciatingly long city council agendas in search of job openings.

King City City Council meets tomorrow, June 23, and right there on page 205, item 4F, Squid saw the line: After nine years at the helm, City Manager Michael Powers is leaving town. City Council is set to approve his departure.

“During the city manager evaluation process at the last Council meeting, Mr. Powers informed the Council that he desired to seek new professional challenges and will be leaving the city’s employment,” according to a report by City Attorney Martin Koczanowicz.

Council is set to consider a six-month transition agreement giving Powers until Dec. 23 to find a new job, and giving them that long to find his replacement. (If he finds a new gig sooner, he can jump ship with 30 days’ notice.)

Koczanowicz also recommends forgiving Powers’ home loan: “In consider of City Manager’s commitment to provide the city with a transition period, City will forgive the loan given to the City Manager for the purchase of the house secured by a second deed of trust.”

The amount on the loan is about $94,000, says King City Mayor Rob Cullen. Cullen adds that forgiving the loan or not is basically a wash for the city: Powers bought at the peak of the market, which leaves the house underwater at its current value, so the city gets nothing back whether it forgives the loan or not. "Because he is underwater, there is no possibility for the city to be able to recoup any of that," Cullen says. 

The announcement of Powers planned departure comes just as the city finally got new leadership for its police department. This morning, Police Chief Ron Forgue was sworn in as police chief. The 29-year veteran Chicago cop takes over a downtrodden PD where a third of the police force was arrested in February 2014 on various charges. Since then, four people (including one civilian—the former acting chief’s brother) have taken plea deals. Another King City cop was convicted for brandishing a firearm threatening his ex-girlfriend and her lover, in a case unrelated to the big sweep last February.

Note that this all happened under Powers’ watch, but none of it appears in the proposed transition agreement. There’s also no mention of Powers’ alleged eavesdropping on colleagues at City Hall (which was never proven, but it did get him a performance review in closed session). Instead, there’s a commendation for leading the city through financial distress and the Great Recession (praise there is deserved; the police department fallout has been costly, but Powers helped shore up spending, balancing the city budget). All in all, he gets a pretty sweet deal: Home loan in exchange for a six-month grace period to find work (is that really a trade-off?) and he even gets a nice recommendation letter thrown in, according the proposed agreement.

Then again, maybe it’s not a trade-off. Despite its woes, King City doesn’t seem like a bad place to work. Consider this: Sgt. Mark Allen Baker collected a disability check in the amount of $725.59, according to the latest city check register (also on tomorrow’s agenda). Baker is currently doing five years’ probation, after pleading no contest to a misdemeanor charge of false imprisonment.

As far as the police chief job description, one item didn't quite make the cut for the job description: fluency in Spanish. "[Forgue] says he knows enough to get by, but it’s something he’s going to be working on," Cullen says. 

Maybe instead of dispensing occasional career advice, Squid should ask the cops of King City how it’s done.