Assistant City Manager Resigns

After more than 10 years with the city, the assistant city manager and community resources director of Hermosa Beach has announced she is looking for a new job and will resign in January to “look for bigger and better things.”

Alana Mastrian-Handman, 44, who had complained in May that doing both jobs was too stressful, cited personal reasons for the resignation. She added that news reports linking her decision to a recently discovered fee-collection error were inaccurate. The resignation, she said, had absolutely nothing to do with the error, which she made in 1987 while she was filling in as city manager.

The mistake was a failure to have the city collect a $200 increase in fees assessed to movie companies filming in the city. The error cost the city about $10,000 and wasn’t caught until last month. Although City Manager Kevin Northcraft called it “unfortunate, but not earth shattering,” it was seized upon as an issue in the current City Council election campaign.

“I’ve been thinking about this for the last six months. I’ve been here 10 years, and I was getting tired of the routine,” she said. “I was putting in 12 to 14 hours a day on average, and then I got married a year and a half ago, and I decided I had to start balancing things out.”