Burbank spokesman leaving city to work for Glendale Community College

After five years with Burbank, city spokesman Drew Sugars has decided to move on and take on the top job in public outreach at Glendale Community College.

Sugars, 52, will be leaving his post in Burbank on July 14 and will take some time off before starting his new position as the college’s director of communications and community relations in August.

The outgoing city spokesman is no stranger to community colleges. Originally from Northern California, Sugars attended Santa Rosa Junior College before going to San Francisco State University. He added that his time at Santa Rosa helped him figure out what career path to follow.

“I firmly believe in the mission of community colleges,” Sugars said. “Whether you’re trying to get into a four-year college, learning a job skill or want to brush up on something and enrich your life, [community colleges] are amazing.”

Aside from having the opportunity to work with what he believes is the best community college in the region, Sugars said he chose to leave the city government position in order to spend more time with his family.

Sugars’ youngest son recently graduated from Burbank High School and is off to CSU Fullerton in the fall. With one daughter left in high school, Sugars said it was time for him to find a job that allows him to spend more time with her before he and his wife become empty nesters.

“My daughter has three more years of high school, and it was very important for me that I set myself up so that I can be with her and enjoy these last three years,” he said.

Glendale Community College will be the third public agency for which Sugars has worked as a spokesman. His first position was as a public information officer for the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department, where he was the first civilian spokesperson for the law-enforcement agency.

However, the majority of Sugars’ career was spent in front of the cameras as a broadcast journalist. He was a television news anchor for 17 years, covering the cities of Erie, Pa., Bakersfield and Santa Barbara.

During his stint in broadcasting, Sugars co-anchored the news with his wife Nerissa for 14 years. She currently does marketing and business development for Hollywood Burbank Airport.

While five years may not seem like a long time, Sugars said technology has advanced in a way where it has been easier to reach out to a wider audience. He recognizes that young adults tend to use Instagram to get their news snippets, while older folks can be found talking with one another on Facebook.

Sugars added that smartphones have allowed other city departments outside of his own to film their own 30-second informational pieces rather than sending his staff out to a location with their professional video equipment.

For example, Sugars said the city used to have a 20-minute video segment on the Burbank Channel for its adopt-a-pet broadcast, in which his crew would go down to the Burbank Animal Shelter and talk about each pet up for adoption.

“It was time-intensive to shoot it and edit it,” Sugars said.

With smartphone cameras and software improvements over the last five years, Sugar said animal shelter employees now take 60-second video clips of each pet and send them to his office, where they are edited and posted online.

“We trained them how to use their phones properly — filming horizontally and not vertically,” he said.

While video production is nothing new for Burbank, Sugars said he helped the city shift its focus from only producing video pieces for the Burbank Channel — the city’s government television channel — to incorporating social-media outlets to get messages across to residents.

Though he has helped the city earn two Los Angeles Area Emmy Awards and recently three Emmy nominations for the upcoming Emmy Awards on July 22, Sugars said his main goal is to convey a message to residents in a way that it makes them want to get involved in their community.

“Every message that we send out needs to have some kind of call to action,” he said. “If you’re talking about the Starlight Bowl, you want to show people how they can get tickets. If you’re talking about how to save water during the drought, we have to be very specific about what they can do to put in drought-tolerant plants. Whatever it might be, there needs to be a call to action.”

anthonyclark.carpio@latimes.com

Twitter: @acocarpio