For 11 years, Gary O’Connell has been the man behind the curtain for the City of Charlottesville: While City councilors come and go, the City manager spans regimes. Though by some measure the puppet of the Council, required to do their bidding based on the priorities they set, he can turn the table—setting the agenda for Council meetings and running the day-to-day operations.
 Of City Manager Gary O’Oconnell (above), Councilor Juilian Taliaferro says, "He doesn’t seem to hold a grudge—that I ever detected, anyway." |
It appears the City is getting O’Connell for at least five more years: City Council extended his contract until May 2011 at their December 18 meeting. Council didn’t discuss the extension—it was merely another on a list of items on the consent agenda.
As elected officials, City Council controls the contract for the City manager. They evaluate his performance annually, and to decrease the chances that an ideologically inflamed newbie will make a partisan decision to depose a City manager, they do it about six months after an election would have taken place. O’Connell’s evaluations aren’t public documents, since he’s treated in most respects like other City personnel.
“I don’t always agree with him,” says City Councilor Julian Taliaferro. “But I think he does a good job. He has the best interest of the city at heart.
“It’s a high-stress job—I wouldn’t want it.”
For that high stress, O’Connell is compensated $156,961 per year, as well as benefits and a City car. His raises are at the same rate as other City employees, usually 3 to 4 percent.
Looking at other localities “paints a picture that Gary is low on the totem pole when it comes to salary compensation,” says City spokesman Ric Barrick, based on figures from a survey Albemarle County conducted when they reviewed their county executive, Robert Tucker, in July. Tucker is paid $165,000, while county executives in Loudon and Chesterfield counties earn just under $200,000. City School Superintendent Rosa Atkins is paid $153,000.
