King City undecided on petition to remove city manager

Political trouble is brewing in King City after the fallout of alleged corruption within the police department.

It seems everyone can agree change is needed, but the challenge is how to make that happen. This comes just weeks after a county investigation into an alleged illegal impounding scheme left six police officers on the wrong side of the law.

This week many residents are demanding accountability. More than 200 King City residents signed a petition asking City Manager Michael Powers be removed from his position. City Council members said they’re trying to figure out what to do with it as some residents demand action.

“It’s accountability. You know obviously this is the man that is supposed to watch over the department and obviously its like at home, if you don’t watch your kids they’ll run wild,” said petition organizer Margarita Lopez.

“When times are good the council gets the glory, when times are bad, its pick on the city manager,” said Powers.

Powers said the people on this petition to remove him from city hall, are just looking for someone to blame. Mayor Rob Cullen said he hasn’t had a chance to thoroughly look at the document yet, but has complete faith in powers. He said the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office did a wide investigation before charges were brought against those six police officers last month.

“That included investigating our city manager. I’m assuming they found no wrong doing otherwise he would have been arrested as well,” Cullen said.

Some residents at Tuesday night’s City Council meeting agreed and said Powers is dedicated to the city’s well-being; while others couldn’t disagree more.

“He answers only to the council and all the department heads are accountable to him,” Lopez said.

That includes former Police Chief Nick Baldiviez, facing embezzlement charges and former Acting Chief Bruce Miller charged with accepting a bribe. Those behind the petition, including Lopez said if city council doesn’t remove Powers, they’ll take it to the extreme.

“We’re gonna start putting pressure and that’s picketing their homes and you know some council members are business people in the community,” Lopez said.

Mayor Cullen said the council needs to figure out how to respond.

“The city manager is not an elected official. So there wouldn’t be any protocol for this sort of thing. It would be different if it was a petition done for a publicly elected official,” Cullen said.

Mayor Cullen said the city manager has a job-performance evaluation coming up soon and this petition may become a part of that down the line.