Rancho Palos Verdes Manager Announces His Resignignation

Rancho Palos Verdes City Manager Donald F. Guluzzy, 43, has announced that he is resigning his $48,000-a-year post as of July 1.

“I feel it is time to seek new challenges,” Guluzzy wrote in a letter to Mayor Douglas Hinchliffe and the City Council.

“I’m tired and I’ve been here 5 1/2 years,” Guluzzy told The Times. He said he has no other job lined up but that he is “interviewing in a number of places.” He said he expects to have a new post by July 1.

Hinchliffe said that Guluzzy made an independent decision to leave the city but that the council concurred and did not “beat him over the head to stay.”

Hinchliffe said, “All council members agree Don is a very hard-working, honest guy who had the city’s best interests at heart in all he did. Clearly, there were disagreements from time to time over his style and perhaps some of his advice and counsel, but by and large the council felt he did a good job.”

The council has set a June 11 deadline for receiving applications for the manager’s job and Hinchliffe said it probably will be Aug. 1 before a new person begins work. Guluzzy said that if he does not have a new post by July 1, he will stay in Rancho Palos Verdes until a new manager takes over.

Guluzzy said his biggest accomplishment was obtaining a $2-million grant from the state Legislature to stabilize the Portuguese Bend landslide. The slide bill was carried last year by Assemblyman Gerald R. Felando (R-San Pedro) and narrowly passed after intense lobbying by Guluzzy and council members. “I spent lots of time on the slide and it was all-consuming,” Guluzzy said.

In his letter to the mayor, Guluzzy said, “I am proud of the record we have achieved during my tenure as city manager.”