Aw, the poor guy. I guess that's what can happen when your lack of ability costs other people lots of money. My heart bleeds. Truly.

As far as the contract, there is no justification for it, at all. Your attempt at rationalizing it by saying it was "likely to keep the employee in place after a turbulent time" is silly. Leaving aside that this area is sick with restaurant managers who are and were eminently more qualified than Townsend and who likely would have taken a contract worth a fifth of what Townsend got, the idea that any contract for any restaurant manager ANYWHERE would have a parachute worth 6 figures in it is insane. I've been in this biz for a combined 12 years, worked in major cities, small towns, you name it...and I have never seen anything like that. Never, ever. 6 figures for a backup restaurant manager? Seriously? It may not have been criminal, but it was, at best, criminally stupid. It doesn't matter whether or not he had the authority to do this. Everyone at OPA who had any responsibility for managerial oversight at the time,  in my mind, owes the people of OPA an explanation as to why 100 grand of their money went out the window to an employee for not coming to work. 

How can the people who live here trust the people running the place to make sound fiscal decisions when they allowed something like this to happen?