Jesus Armas

HAYWARD | South San Francisco is having second thoughts about hiring former Hayward school board president Jesus Armas as its next city manager. After the city’s city council apparently approved the terms of a 2-year, $230,000 contract earlier this month, an internal memorandum dated Sept. 19, says otherwise.

“The City Council has elected to continue with the City Manger recruitment process and to also consider the selection of an Interim City Manager while that recruitment process continues,” wrote South San Francisco Mayor Pedro Gonzalez. The current city manager will continue through Nov. 1, the previous date of his retirement.

During a Sept. 11 City Council meeting, its appeared the hiring of Armas, a former South San Francisco city manager in the late eighties who also served as Hayward’s city manager and later a school board member until last year, was a done deal. The council approved the agenda items late in the evening without discussion. A request to the South San Francisco city manager’s office was not returned as of Thursday evening.

However, the city’s staff may have done some eleventh hour research into Armas’s infamous extra-marital affair with a fellow school board member that resulted in both not seeking near certain re-election in November 2012.

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