A TALE OF TWO CITIES : Pasadena, Pomona Seek Managers in Very Different Ways

When it comes to the selection of city managers in the San Gabriel Valley, east is east and west is west, and never the twain shall meet.

City councils in the valley’s two largest cities, Pasadena on the west and Pomona on the east, have begun the task of filling their top city administrative posts by taking radically different approaches.

Pasadena City Manager Donald F. McIntyre plans to retire in June after 17 years on the job. The council--known as the Board of Directors--has hired a team to begin the recruitment process by drawing a profile of the ideal Pasadena city manager. The recruiters will meet with board members and the public to gather information for the profile and then launch a nationwide search for qualified applicants, screening them before the board interviews the finalists.

The recruitment team will receive $28,000, plus expenses. The process will take several months.

Meanwhile, in Pomona, where the last permanent city administrator was fired in May and an interim replacement quit after five weeks on the job, the City Council is taking the do-it-yourself approach, spending about $3,000 on help-wanted ads.

The ads have been placed in The Times, two minority newspapers, a municipal job bulletin and the magazine of the League of California Cities. Council members are reviewing the job applications and will meet to choose the individuals to be invited to interviews.

Councilman C. L. (Clay) Bryant said the council is running the recruitment itself after spending $10,000 for a firm to help recruit its last permanent administrator, who lasted only 13 months.

The ad inviting job applications says Pomona is seeking an individual with a strong background in local government, knowledge of fiscal and community development issues, a bachelor’s degree in business or public administration, a stable employment history and recent employment in city administration. The ad says experience in working in a multi-ethnic community would be a plus, and demonstrated success in budget and financial management is essential.

Councilman Mark Nymeyer said the next city administrator also should be adept at working in a volatile environment, a qualification that could be in considerable demand in Pomona’s often stormy political climate.

“It can’t be some wimp who can’t take a little bit of heat,” he said.

Nymeyer said the administrator must work with council members with diverse priorities, ranging from his own concern about keeping taxes low to Bryant’s crusades for the downtrodden and Tomas Ursua’s interest in low-cost housing. “The person has to be pretty phenomenal,” he said.

The city has received more than 100 applications for the job, a fact that Nymeyer said surprised him.

When the council majority fired City Administrator A. J. Wilson last May over the objections of Nymeyer and Mayor Donna Smith, both said the city would have trouble attracting a strong successor. The mayor said: “Anyone with any brains is not going to apply for the manager’s job in Pomona.”

Smith was ill last week and unavailable for comment on the applications, but Nymeyer said at least a dozen applicants meet the job requirements.

Councilwoman Nell Soto concurred.

“We’ve gotten some really good candidates,” she said. “There are a lot of people who want to come to Pomona.”

The applicants range from recent college graduates who have worked as interns to people with 20 to 30 years of experience in government. The deadline for submitting applications was Friday.

One San Gabriel Valley city administrator said Pomona is unlikely to attract a manager from a city of comparable size because of its divided council, but should be able to hire the manager of a smaller city seeking career advancement. The chance to manage a city of more than 100,000 people with its own police and fire departments is always attractive, he said, even when job security is poor.

The same administrator said Pasadena’s elaborate process for selecting a successor to McIntyre is unnecessary and simply feeds the city’s ego. Pasadena always fills its top jobs with a national search even though there is a large pool of qualified candidates who already live in Southern California, he said.

Pasadena City Director Rick Cole said no one can say in advance whether an extensive recruitment effort is necessary.

Most Important Decision

“Maybe the next city manager already knows about the job and is planning to apply,” Cole said. In that case, the city will have wasted a lot of time and money on recruitment. But, he said, it could be that the best choice lives far away and “will be the last guy called” by recruiters. In that case, he said, the extra time and money will have been well spent.

Cole said the choice of the next city manager is the most important decision any city director is likely to make during his term on the board.

He noted that if the next city manager holds the position as long as McIntyre did, he will be in the job until 2010.

“People have very little understanding of what city government would be like” without McIntyre, who has held his post longer than any current director, commissioner or department head, Cole said.

That is one reason why the city needs to go through the process of carefully considering the qualities a city manager should possess, he said.

The process will begin with a public meeting conducted by the board from 9 a.m. to noon Sept. 30 at the Pasadena Conference Center. The city is sending invitations to 500 commissioners, heads of organizations and other community leaders asking them to participate in the discussion of the skills and characteristics needed in a city manager.

The city has hired two firms, RJA Management Services Inc. of Arcadia and Shannon & Associates of Sacramento, to help develop the list of qualifications and undertake the recruitment.

‘More Casual’ Process

Former Pasadena Mayor Donald Yokaitis said the process Pasadena used when McIntyre was hired was much simpler. The city employed a retired city manager to screen applicants and then interviewed several candidates.

“Maybe we were a little more casual, but I think it worked out pretty good,” he said.

Mayor William E. Thomson said the city board should be ready to appoint a new city manager by March or early April.

The Pasadena city manager’s position carries a salary range of $101,198 to $126,498 a year. Pomona has not set a salary but paid its last city administrator $82,644. Fire Chief Tom Fee is serving as interim city administrator without compensation beyond his Fire Department salary. Fee said he has not applied for the permanent position.

Pomona council members said they hope to appoint a permanent administrator by November.