Ex-Irvine Mayor to Be La Canada Manager

A former Irvine mayor has been named city manager of La Canada Flintridge.

After a yearlong search, the City Council on Monday announced the selection of Gabrielle Pryor, 50, of San Dimas to the $71,600-a-year post. Pryor, currently assistant city manager of San Dimas, will take office Oct. 22.

She will succeed George Caswell, 70, who has served as city manager on a part-time, interim basis since June, 1989, when former Manager Donald H. Otterman quit to assume leadership of Keizer, Ore., a fast-growing farm community.

Pryor was among seven finalists in a field of 52 applicants. Three of the candidates were re-interviewed by the council on Saturday and the final selection was made Monday, Mayor John W. Hastings said.

Pryor “comes from a city that is very similar in operation to La Canada Flintridge,” Hastings said. “She knows her way around county government and the state government. She seems to be very sensitive to the things that we need. The lady is going to do a great job for us.”

She is a 1961 graduate of Stanford University, where she studied history. In 1979, she returned to school to earn a master’s degree in government from Claremont Graduate School. In the meantime, she had worked as a teacher of high school English and social studies in Irvine.

Pryor entered politics in 1971 when she was elected to the first Irvine City Council and helped shape the formative years of the Orange County community until 1978. She served as mayor in 1974-75.

She was an administrative analyst for the city of West Covina from 1983 to 1985, when she went to work for San Dimas.

Pryor’s husband, Larry, is an editor with the Los Angeles Times. They have two sons.