Council Looks Into Own Backyard for New City Manager

Wary of choosing another person from out of town to fill city government’s top administrative post, the San Diego City Council on Tuesday named John Lockwood, a hometown boy and lifelong municipal employee, as the new city manager.

The appointment of Lockwood was expected and comes one day after the council accepted the resignation of Sylvester Murray, who served only 13 months at the helm of city government.

Council members huddled with Lockwood for more than an hour Tuesday morning, then announced his appointment during their afternoon meetings, after excusing themselves to vote in private. In making the announcement, Mayor Maureen O’Connor said Lockwood received the unanimous vote of the council.

Becoming San Diego’s 17th city manager will mean a significant jump in pay for the 55-year-old administrator--from $85,000 a year to the $102,000 Murray was paid.

As assistant city manager, Lockwood had been the first choice of council members to succeed Ray Blair, who resigned as city manager in mid-1985 because of health reasons. But Lockwood turned the job down and filled in as acting city manager for eight months while the council conducted a nationwide search that eventually focused on Murray, at the time the city manager in Cincinnati.

Lockwood told reporters he changed his mind about the job for “professional and personal” reasons and accepted the council’s offer, which was tendered at 9:45 a.m.

Filling in the first time was a pleasant experience, he said.

In addition, he said taking the job would “settle things down for a while” at City Hall, which has been buffeted by scandal and turnover in high offices.

“In the last 43 months, there have been five mayors and three city managers, if you count the people that acted like myself, Mr. Cleator and Mr. Struiksma,” said Lockwood, referring to the times between elections that Cleator and Struiksma served as acting mayor.

“That’s a lot of change for an organization of 7,000 employees and a $650-million budget. You just don’t want to change that rapidly and that often.”

Referring to Murray’s departure as a “no-fault” divorce from the council, Lockwood acknowledged that being a San Diego native and a veteran of the city’s brand of council-manager government may give him an advantage.

“The problem of somebody coming in from out of state is very difficult,” said Lockwood. “The learning curve is straight up.

“It’s not me becoming city manager, but I think that, at least in the near term, another search and then somebody reporting for work and then learning the system probably isn’t in the best interest of the city.”

Unlike Murray, he has signed no contracts with the council calling for severance pay in the event the council would call for his resignation. Lockwood said he is already eligible to retire from city service, and he joked Tuesday that he needs only half an hour to clean out his desk.

“That’s all I need in that I’m vested for retirement purposes,” he said.

Lockwood said he will meet with city department heads this morning, and has a “partial” list of who he wants on his management team.

Support among council members to appoint Lockwood began to build last week as soon as news leaked that the council had voted in closed session Oct. 7 to force the resignation of Murray, whose relations with the elected officials were rocky at best.

In Lockwood, the council has chosen a hometown boy who has worked his way up and around city government--the exact opposite of outsider Murray, the city’s first black city manager.

Lockwood took his first job in 1949 as mail messenger and mimeograph operator for the County and City of San Diego, before receiving a bachelor’s degree in public administration from San Diego State University. He was hired back into city service in 1956 as a budget analyst, then took jobs as the council liaison with the manager’s office, assistant to the council, city clerk and, eventually, in the city manager’s office.

Calling his management style “pretty much low-keyed,” Lockwood said he wouldn’t change. “Fifty-five-year-old grandfathers don’t change their styles, their personalities,” he observed.

Lockwood said he usually knocks off for the day after 5 p.m., but collects his paper work for review during the weekend. His most productive time, he said, is early in the morning on Sunday while waiting for the kickoff of football games on television.

Asked how he intends to please his bosses, the council members, Lockwood said: “I think you have to be responsive.

“There’s nothing unique in the manager-council relationship. It’s the same as any subordinate-superior relationship--you have to be responsive to the person you work for.

“If they want information, you have to get it back to them. It has to be accurate and it has to be prompt. That’s pretty much what they expect and what they demand of us. I don’t see that as a problem.”