FULLERTON : City Manager Gets Performance Honor

City Manager James L. Armstrong has a lot of bosses. He’s responsible to the City Council and, by extension, every resident of Fullerton.

During a recent public meeting about a proposed 3% utility-users tax, scores of residents accused the city of wasting money. The person they claim should be doing a better job is Armstrong, who runs the city on a day-to-day basis.

But others in Orange County have a very different view. The county chapter of the American Society for Public Administration last week gave Armstrong its Outstanding Public Administrator award.

“He has an outstanding record of public service,” said Sandra Sutphen, a Cal State Fullerton political science professor who was on the committee that made the award. Sutphen said the committee looked at Armstrong’s work in Fullerton, in Anaheim, where he was assistant city manager and in Hanford, Calif., where he was city manager.

He has strong support from the council, who hired him in October, 1992.

“He’s doing an outstanding job,” said Councilman A.B. (Buck) Catlin. “I thought his management of the big utility-tax hearing we had was excellent.”

Catlin praised Armstrong’s openness at the angry June 15 meeting, adding that his evenhanded approach there epitomizes how he does his job. “He takes time to inform the public before it comes down to the council having to bite the bullet,” he said.

More than 700 people attended the meeting where Catlin and two other council members voted to support the 3% tax. About two-thirds of the audience vocally opposed the tax. A final vote on the tax will be made July 6.

Armstrong also played a key role in seeing that more taxes were not necessary. Armstrong began reviewing the city’s budget last November, and under his direction, staff members trimmed 5% out of last year’s $47.2-million budget.

More than 800 city employees work for Armstrong. The council directs him in policy decisions.

Armstrong is paid $132,000, and receives another $14,000 in benefits. He was picked to work for the city last fall from a field of more than 80 applicants.

Once this year’s budget is passed, Armstrong said, he wants to streamline the entire city operation. “We have a real energetic team here that wants to work on overhauling,” he said.

“We plan to really look at business here and see how we could do it better: cut out a lot of the processes and procedures and bureaucracy, and make things run smoother.”

Armstrong said he will study staff communication, the budget process, training and development, performance evaluation and worker productivity.

“He has such a quick and thorough grasp of what is going on,” said Gwen Ferguson, who managed the winning campaigns of Mayor Molly McClanahan and former Councilwoman Frances Wood. “I am hearing very, very positive things from people on staff.”