Salaries Capricious at City Hall Under Dyster

No rhyme or reason: Ali Marzban (upper left), unlicensed engineer: $92,000; Kevin Cottrell (upper right), part time curator of a tiny, unopened exhibit: $74,800; Seth Piccirillo (left), 29-year old, brand new hire for largely useless CD dept.: $70,000; Dave Kinney (right), long-time, hard-working director of DPW, in charge of all city roads, parks, 100 plus employees, and $12 million budget: $70,000.

Dyster arrived at city hall in 2008 and immediately paid his city administrator $110,000. That’s $50,000 more than the last city administrator.

Last year he brought 29 year-old wunderkind Seth Piccirillo to direct the Community Development Department at $70,000, which was more than outgoing CD chief Bob Antonucci was making after a career of work.

He paid license-less city engineer Ali Marzban $96,000 per year to sign -off on projects he wasn’t legally licensed to sign off on. The current city engineer, Jeffrey Skurka, is, as you read this, in France studying the Knights Templar and has accused the city council and coworkers of stressing him out.

The mayor’s former buddy, Dave Kinney, was brought in to direct Public Works and received several raises, along with his secretary, over the last few years and he currently tops $70,000. The mayor opened an EEO office with a scheduled top paying position of $50,000, which he bumped up to $60,000 before it was even filled. After it was filled by Ruby Pulliam, he replaced retiring HR director Joyce Serianni with Pulliam, and made Pulliam the super director of a joint EEO/HR department with an eye-opening salary of $85,000.

We understand that the mayor is now closing the EEO office, but that Pulliam’s pay will remain at $85,000. Go figure.
Guy Bax’s worst day turned out to be Dennis Virtuoso’s luckiest day after the FBI visited city hall in July of 2009.

Virtuoso assumed the director position of the Inspections Department and copped his current pay, plus acting director pay, plus large overtime for a grand total payout that has risen to over $90,000 in some of the past four years. Bax was making $65,000.

Dyster hired Kevin Cottrell to direct the Underground Railroad project at a salary of $74,000 per year for several years. Cottrell hit a rock in the road, had to leave city government last year and the project is yet to be completed with at least one contractor suing the city for payment due.

Dyster worked up a special contract with Police Supt. John Chella allowing the top cop to roll overtime pay into his pension payout calculation. It was an unprecedented sweetheart deal and now several other Dyster department heads are angling for the same contract.

Will Dyster do it?