Burbank City Council selects Ron Davis as new city manager

For the past four months, Burbank interim city manager Ron Davis has had to deal with several critical issues — operating a city with a systemically unbalanced budget, contention within the police department, an aging city infrastructure with no money to pay for improvements and resolving issues with labor groups.

Even while finding solutions to all of those problems, Davis was not deterred by the responsibilities of the position and put his name into the hat of potential candidates to be the next city manager. On Tuesday, the City Council announced the 17-year Burbank employee will get the top job in the city.

“As [assistant city manager] Justin Hess said, [the last four months] were just intense enough that I got a good taste for the challenge,” Davis said about serving in the interim position since February. “The four months allowed me to get my head in the game and decide if it’s right for me and my family. I think it was a good thing.”

Mayor Jess Talamantes said that although Davis has been selected to be the new city manager, Davis’ contract is still up for negotiation, and he will not assume his new title until it is approved.

Davis joined the city in 1999 when he became general manager of Burbank Water and Power. When then-city manager Mark Scott announced in November 2015 that he was retiring, the city started a national search to find his replacement and chose Davis to fill in while the best candidate was found.

Jorge Somoano, acting head of the city-owned utility, will most likely remain in his position while a permanent replacement is found for the head of the utility, Davis said.

“I just haven’t decided yet whether we’ll spend the money to do a recruitment or not,” he said. “I want to get other department heads’ input.”

Though his contract still needs to be negotiated and approved, Davis has his sights on continuing what he has the past four months, which is to get the city out of a rut.

One of Davis’ top priorities is to get Burbank’s budget back in to the black. Earlier this month, the council approved the city’s 2016-17 budget, which had a roughly $1.2-million deficit that required a one-time transfer from the General Fund to make up for the shortcoming.

“There’s ways besides just cutting services or people,” he said. “There’s also organizational and operational efficiencies. If we relook at efficiencies, there are efficiencies to be had that don’t involve layoffs. I think reviewing all of our business models in the city, even though they get reviewed frequently, we should review them thoroughly and challenge the assumptions that people take for granted. If we test that, I think we’ll find some things we could change or should change, even if they’re difficult.”

There is also the matter of updating and maintaining the city’s infrastructure, which Davis said is aging and needs updating.

“It’s simply a 100-year-old city, and it needs to deal with the questions of ‘do we want things renewed, and if so, what are the priorities and what will be the funding?’” he said.

Additionally, Davis said there needs to be responsible growth in the city, stating that Burbank had not created additional housing in about five years, even though businesses continue to attract employees to the region.

“I think our vacancy rate for residual is about 0.5%, so if you go looking for an apartment in Burbank, it’s going to be tired and expensive, if you find anything,” he said.

At the end of the day, Davis said he is excited to look at ways to improve Burbank for its residents and his family.

“It’s all one big puzzle,” he said. “The idea of trying to solve everything as a community is exciting. The plurality of inputs from different interests — from our schools, churches and nonprofits — it all is part of the fabric that makes a community some place you want to be.”

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Anthony Clark Carpio, anthonyclark.carpio@latimes.com

Twitter: @acocarpio