Newest City Planners Didn’t Plan on Being Laid Off

In February, Kevin Cook left Phoenix, where he had nearly six years of seniority with the city, for a job with the San Diego city architect’s office.

“It was an opportunity for growth and professional advancement in my career,” Cook said.

Today, Cook is among 38 city employees who could be laid off because of a major cut in the Planning Department. Many of the 38 employees moved here as recently as the past few months, some of them relocating from the Midwest and East Coast during a wave of hirings conducted to fill long-vacant positions.

The prospect of layoffs, coming hard on the heels of the scandal over a secret city payment to end a sexual harassment complaint against former Planning Director Robert Spaulding, has created turmoil in the large city department as it faces an audit of its management and a complete review of land use regulations by the head of the Planning Commission.

“We’re losing some good people,” said City Architect Mike Stepner, whose 20-member staff will be reduced by more than 40%. “It’s a very demoralizing time.”

In an attempt to absorb all 38 people targeted for layoffs, City Manager Jack McGrory has frozen hiring for all planning and related positions in other city departments until it is determined whether jobs can be found for ousted Planning Department employees.

McGrory believes that jobs will be found for all staffers in the Engineering and Development, Waste Management or Water Utilities departments, but some will have to accept demotions and pay cuts, and others may have to work at jobs such as budget analyst.

Judy Richards, president and general manager of the Municipal Employees Assn., which represents some of the planners who this week received notices that their last day with the city could be Aug. 9, said that salary reductions may be “minimal.”

But planners, who said they are not taking city promises for granted, are questioning why the council chose to slice $3 million and 58 positions from the $13.8-million, 250-person department so soon after hiring about 30 people authorized by last year’s budget.

The council is scheduled to final ize the budget cut later this month. Because of existing vacancies, only 38 layoffs would be necessary.

Though city leaders deny it, speculation among some rank-and-file employees is that the council swung its budget ax at the Planning Department in retribution for the embarrassment caused by the Spaulding scandal. Until newspapers revealed the deal, the council was kept in the dark about a $98,000 payment authorized in March by retiring City Manager John Lockwood to former Gaslamp Quarter planner Susan Bray as settlement for her sex harassment claim against Spaulding.

“I think it is related (to the Spaulding scandal),” Richards said. “I think it’s involved in the decision.”

The city has been sued for a total of more than $5 million by Spaulding and Bray. Spaulding’s suit claims that he was wrongfully terminated and Bray contends that the city violated a confidentiality clause in the settlement agreement.

“We were an easy target,” said one planner, who insisted on anonymity. “There was no one there to defend us.”

The council, however, has said that the budget cut is because of dissatisfaction with the Planning Department’s efficiency and service to its clients, as well as the belief that in a recessionary economy, a department of 250 employees is too large for the number of homes and other facilities being built in San Diego.

Hardest hit are the city architect’s office and the Development and Environmental Planning Division, where 30 of 90 positions will be eliminated.

“This is not a punishment for the escapades of management,” said Councilman Ron Roberts, an architect by profession. “The reality of the situation is we have a department that has too damn many people.”

A key factor in the council’s decision to target the Planning Department was the revelation that the department had grown from about 100 employees during the 1980s to 250 today, Roberts said.

But that is little comfort for those recruited for jobs here when the city lifted a five-month hiring freeze on July 1, 1990. During the following nine months, planners from Massachusetts, Arizona, Canada and elsewhere joined the city Planning Department as it beefed up its ability to assist developers with projects and coped with newly enacted regulations such as its environmental protection ordinance.

“I did my research before I moved here, and I thought it was a very stable situation,” said Cook, who moved from Phoenix. Now Cook could find himself unemployed in a poor economy for the building industry or transferred to a job he did not expect and may not want.

“What has happened, has happened, and I’m trying to look forward so I can get my life back in order,” he said.

Many planners were reluctant to discuss the impending layoffs, for fear of angering top administrators who might determine their new jobs or City Council members whom they believe still could reverse the budget cut. Others spoke only on the condition of anonymity.

“People are actively trying to figure out how we can all best survive this,” said one.

“A lot of these 38 people are still on probation,” Richards added. “There’s not an answer why this department has to take such a large cut.”

City officials acknowledge that the Planning Department’s hiring process dragged on toward the enactment of this year’s budget, bringing some new employees here just before the council started to cut the department’s budget.

“I think, quite frankly, they took too long to fill the positions,” said Deputy City Manager Severo Esquivel, who is acting head of the Planning Department. “And then when they came on and got here, it was early spring.”

“It’s a fair question,” Roberts added. “We didn’t bring them here to lay them off.”

McGrory promised an all-out city effort for planners who moved here from out of town. “They relocated from other parts of the country, they moved themselves and their families,” he said. “If we can find them legitimate positions in other departments of city government, we have an obligation to do it.”