Supervisors Choose New CAO : Santa Barbara County Official to Succeed Thomas

Larry Parrish, the man credited with getting Santa Barbara County through tough economic times with a minimum of pain, was chosen Tuesday to be Orange County’s new chief administrative officer.

The Board of Supervisors capped a five-month, nationwide search by announcing their selection of Parrish, who currently is administrative officer in Santa Barbara County.

The supervisors said they still must negotiate Parrish’s pay, which could be as much as $96,720 a year, and work out other terms of his contract, but expressed the hope that he could start work by June 3.

Replaces Robert Thomas

Parrish, 45, will replace Robert E. Thomas, who retired in February at age 65 after 18 years as county administrative officer. Thomas was the first person to hold the job in Orange County.

“Orange County is quite a challenge and is a tremendous county in terms of the opportunity, with its size and its climate--and I don’t mean weather climate,” Parrish said in a telephone interview from Santa Barbara.

“I’m sort of challenged by the idea” of going from the top administrative job in a county of 3,000 government employees and a $160-million budget to one of 11,000 government employees and a $1.3-billion annual budget, Parrish said. He said his current salary is approximately $76,000.

Parrish ran unsuccessfully for the state Assembly in 1976 on the Republican ticket in Santa Cruz County, where he was an official in the Probation Department. He later served as chief of the Probation Department in Santa Barbara County for nearly a year before taking over as county administrative officer more than five years ago.

To Play Active Role

Parrish, who said he prefers to be called Larry rather than by his formal name of David Lawrence, said he believed both he and the supervisors expected him to play an active role in county government, a “key role in all functions.”

Supervisors and their aides complained in recent years that Thomas had not been active enough in working with county agencies to prepare their budgets and did not have enough personal contact with board members.

“I think a pro-active CAO is what we want,” said Supervisor Bruce Nestande. “Without question, the CAO’s position is going to be strengthened from what it was under Thomas, but at the same time it’s not going to go across the whole spectrum . . . closing out top management from having contact with us (supervisors) on the top floor.”

The supervisors announced more than a year ago that they wanted to have a county administrative officer who was a strong chief executive, but not an all-powerful chief of staff controlling access to the supervisors.

An August, 1983, management audit recommended that the CAO act as a government powerhouse who would oversee the entire budget and county staff and be a liaison between the department heads and supervisors. But the supervisors decided to keep their own contacts with department and agency heads, while having the CAO take a greater role in preparing the budget and overseeing the agenda for weekly board meetings.

‘Extraordinary Group’

Nestande, one of the two supervisors who requested the 1983 audit, said the eight finalists who were interviewed Monday by all five supervisors were an “extraordinary group of well-qualified individuals” who included assistant CAOs in Los Angeles and Alameda counties, the vice president of a private corporation and an Austin, Tex., official.

Orange County government officials who were also finalists in the selection process were Michael Schumacher, the chief probation officer; Murray Storm, director of the Environmental Management Agency, and Bert Scott, director of the General Services Administration. Nestande said a ninth finalist, the Berkeley city administrator, was ill but sent a representative to meet the supervisors.

John Schlosser, a partner in the executive recruitment firm of Heidrick and Struggles, which began conducting the hunt for a new CAO for the county in December, said more than 200 candidates from across the country, and some from abroad, asked to be considered to succeed Thomas. (The supervisors appointed county Fire Director Larry Holms acting CAO during the search, but first specified that whoever they picked as interim administrator could not be considered as the permanent CAO.)

Schlosser said that after consulting with supervisors’ aides, he interviewed 21 candidates across the country, from California to “Florida and New York State and all the places in between,” and chose the finalists.

It was Schlosser who sought out Parrish to find out if he was interested in the job, Nestande and Parrish said.

Bid for Office Called Asset

Nestande said Parrish told the supervisors he “never intends to run for office again,” but said he believed that the new CAO’s bid for elective office was an asset because it made him sensitive to dealing with the public.

Parrish has done a good job dealing with the public in his current post, according to DeWayne Holmdahl, chairman of the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors.

“He’s been an excellent administrative officer for the county,” Holmdahl said. “It’ll be a loss to Santa Barbara County.”

Bill Wallace, a Santa Barbara supervisor who has often taken positions in opposition to Holmdahl, joined in praise of Parrish, saying he “is a superb administrator” who has hired good people.

Both Holmdahl and Wallace credited Parrish with drawing up budgets that got the county through tough economic times in the past several years without undue hardships.

Free With Opinions

Parrish “carried us through some real tough times,” Holmdahl said. “Two or three years ago, when we had the real tight budgets, Santa Barbara County was never in the red. We were able to give employees salary increases (and) keep a balanced budget.”

Holmdahl and Wallace also said Parrish was not reluctant to volunteer his opinions on what action supervisors should take, a quality the Orange County supervisors said they were seeking.