New Lancaster City Manager Quits

Less than six months after arriving in Lancaster, City Manager Harold L. Schilling has submitted his resignation, citing mounting tension between his staff and some council members, city officials announced Monday.

“It has become painfully clear to me that my service as Lancaster’s City Manager is neither a professionally acceptable nor personally satisfactory fit,” Schilling wrote to Mayor Henry W. Hearns in a letter dated July 4. “It is most disappointing . . . that I so misread the Lancaster political environment.”

The former Reno city manager, currently vacationing in Oregon, gave 90 days’ notice, as required in his contract, and will return to work in two weeks.

In his letter, he accused two council members of subjecting staff members to “continual negativism, criticism, blindsiding, and intimidation.”

Although the council members were not named in the letter, Schilling clashed several times with Councilmen Arnie Rodio and George S. Theophanis. The two, a frequent minority on the five-member council, criticized the $92-million budget Schilling presented last month and faulted the city manager and his staff for failing to respond to inquiries over city matters.

However, Hearns and Councilman William Pursley, staunch supporters of Schilling, said his resignation was a blow to the 13-year-old city. “His performance was absolutely excellent, and I’m devastated by having him quit,” said Hearns, who found Schilling’s letter on his City Hall desk Monday morning.

The mayor said that Schilling first suggested a few weeks ago that he might step down from his $100,000-a-year position. “I did everything I could to talk him out of it. Obviously it did not work,” he said.

“I was distressed that he resigned,” Pursley said. “I thought his style of managing was outstanding. He was a strong manager, and I thought he’d become stronger as time went by.”

Pursley said that Schilling, who began work Jan. 22 with 16 years’ experience as city manager of four other cities, had become “very discouraged” by an apparently adverse relationship with Rodio and Theophanis. Other council members said the two plagued the city manager’s office with queries and castigated some staff members by name during council meetings.

“I talked to staff, and it seemed they expected to be beat up at every council meeting,” Pursley said. “It seems like it’s pretty difficult for them to operate without getting criticized.”

But Rodio complained that Schilling and his staff failed to respond to repeated inquiries from him and other council members, and that the city manager himself did not take the initiative to clear up any differences that existed between them, such as Rodio’s concerns over the budget.

“He knew I had problems with the budget, but he has never come in to me to talk about it,” he said. “That’s his role--to keep me informed on what’s happening with the city and to answer to my concerns.”

Schilling’s resignation reflected his uncommunicative style, Rodio added. “It’s ridiculous that he gave us the letter and he’s not even here. I don’t like this one-way conversation.”

Both Rodio and Theophanis denied bypassing Schilling on important matters and personally issuing directions to staff members--a municipal code violation. Other council members read such a charge into Schilling’s statement in his letter that the council should seek an “independent investigation” into the two councilmen’s conduct “with respect to the city staff and special interests.”

“I have no way of knowing who or what he’s talking about, because I don’t do that,” Theophanis said. “I do talk to the department heads when it comes to problems like potholes or tree trimming, but not people in the field.”

Theophanis, who has lately been investigated by the city attorney for allegedly ordering a city staff member to advance a grant application from one of his constituents, said he would hire an attorney to determine the basis of Schilling’s allegations.

“Just to lay the blame on the minority, and making allegations--I don’t appreciate that,” he said. “That’s not his job, to investigate the City Council.”