Lancaster City Manager Resigns at Request of City Council

Lancaster City Manager Steve West resigned Thursday after City Council members asked him to step down because they felt the city needed a more forceful and dynamic administrator.

West, 46, who became city manager in December, 1988, after serving as San Diego’s economic development director, said in a written statement: “The City Council and I have mutually agreedthat it is time for a new manager to hold the reins at City Hall.”

West will relinquish his duties Sept. 14 and will be replaced temporarily by Assistant City Manager Dennis Davenport while the council looks for a successor, officials said.

Although the announcement appeared abrupt, officials said the council had grown increasingly dissatisfied with West in recent months. At a news conference after a closed council meeting Thursday morning, council members praised West but made it clear that he had no choice but to step down.

“If you are asking me whether he’s fired or did he resign, I don’t know if there’s an answer to that,” Lancaster Mayor William Pursley said. “We have reached a settlement with him.”

The five-member council has agreed to pay West $66,000 in salary and benefits for the remaining months of his $91,000-a-year contract, which expires in December, officials said.

Council members said West lost their support because he emerged as an inexperienced city manager with an excessively low-key style that allowed strong-minded city leaders to dominate him.

They said new leadership is needed because three new council members have been elected in the past two years and because a slowdown in the area’s economy will require someone who can promote the city aggressively.

“We want a new manager who will take charge and command the respect of the people here,” Pursley said. “We need a strong manager. Steve West was a good city manager. It was his first job as a manager. . . . He didn’t have the confidence of someone who has been a manager for 20 years.”

Councilman Arnie Rodio, one of West’s most vocal critics, said he felt that during West’s tenure the city had relied too much on outside consulting firms to do work that should have been done by city staff.

“We are not a little city anymore,” he said. “We need to do this stuff in-house.”

Lancaster’s population has grown from 55,000 in 1985 to an estimated 95,000 this year.

Rodio acknowledged that West was forced to contend with a council made up of strong and often conflicting personalities. The new manager will “have to be strong enough to handle this council,” Rodio said.

Council members said they hoped to hire a new manager within 60 days. They said they were already discussing possible candidates.