Murray Claims He Failed to Make Friends of City Council

If he could do it over again, former San Diego City Manager Sylvester Murray said he would have tried to become “personal” friends with members of the City Council by playing golf with them, inviting them out to dinner and calling them on weekends.

Not knowing he was “required” to cultivate this kind of intimacy with the nine elected officials who were his bosses led to his forced resignation from city government’s top administrative post after 13 months, Murray said in an interview aired Thursday on public radio station KPBS.

“If I could turn the clock back, I would have, on a one-to-one basis, tried to be very intimate with each of the City Council members,” Murray said during the 15-minute interview. “I did not think that was required of me. I have just learned that now that I’m being asked to leave.

“But I would have taken the initiative and would have, after work and during weekends, called City Council members and asked them over to my apartment for dinner, or take them out to dinner, take them out to play golf.

“I just did not know that that was required of me,” said Murray. “And if I had to do that over again, I would have done that, to say to each of the council members: ‘I want to be your personal friend, I want you to know me.’ ”

The interview Thursday marked the first time Murray has commented on his departure since council members voted 7-1 in closed session last week to ask for his resignation. Councilwoman Gloria McColl was absent and Councilman William Jones voted to retain Murray.

The council originally hoped to give Murray--the city’s first black city manager--three months to quietly look for a job, but a news story about the secret vote spoiled the plan. So Murray tendered his resignation, and it was formally accepted on Monday by the council, which compensated the chief executive with $76,000 in severance pay.

Mayor Maureen O’Connor publicly blamed the rift between Murray and council members on “differences in management style and organizational leadership.” City Hall sources said Murray crossed swords with the council because he was a strong, independently minded manager who made the elected officials nervous.

But in the radio interview, Murray said he believed the root of his problem was more personal than that.

A strong city manager, he said, could succeed in San Diego if he enjoys a “camaraderie” with the council members--calling them by their first names and attending parties at their homes.

“I think that this council could accept that kind of a role if that person, if they feel that person is personally close . . .,” Murray said. “Unfortunately, I did not have that kind of privilege for a number of reasons.

“One is because I was new to the city,” he said. “I did not grow up with them so I cannot talk of history, about the high school we went to and I just did not have that kind of camaraderie.”

Shortly before their demand for his resignation, Murray said council members had complained that they didn’t know him socially.

“I was really taken aback by that kind of comment for a number of reasons,” Murray said. “The first reason was that in almost all boss-employee situations, the boss takes the initiative in letting the employee know that you want to be social. That’s number one.

“And I told the council it never would have occurred to me to take the initiative in saying to council member McColl, ‘I would like for you to go out this evening with me, just to get to know each other, just to have a drink after work with me.’ I would have responded, had she said that to me, but I would not have taken that initiative.”

The one time Murray said he tried to build social bridges with council members yielded no results. It was last Christmas, when he invited government department heads and the elected officials to his apartment for a party.

“I invited all of them for a getting-to-know-you party that I thought of, and there was an invitation, a social invitation that they never reciprocated,” Murray said.

Asked whether the council members attended, the former city manager said: “Yes, they did. They came, but I was never to any of their houses.”

The lesson of getting personal with the bosses won’t be needed in other cities where he might work, Murray said.

“That has been my experience in the past, that city councils have preferred to keep some distance so that there is no personal friendship involved if they want to dismiss you for cause, “ Murray said.

KPBS (FM 89.5) will broadcast the second part of its interview with Murray today at 4:35 p.m..