Ventura to Start City Manager Interviews

The Ventura City Council today will begin interviewing six men and one woman, all of them Californians, who are vying for the city’s top job.

The position has been open since July 1, when former City Manager John Baker resigned.

Two of the candidates--Terry Adelman, Ventura’s director of management resources, and Everett Millais, the director of community resources--already work for the city.

Council members will not release the names of the other candidates because in some cases their colleagues do not know they are applying for the job.

A source close to the process said that of the five outside candidates, three are city managers in Northern California. One is a county administrator in a Northern California county of about 150,000 people, and one is an assistant city manager in a central California city of fewer than 50,000 people.

Of the three city managers, two manage cities of fewer than 40,000 people. The third manages a major California city.

Millais has spent most of his working life in Ventura after accepting a job as an assistant city planner just out of graduate school in 1973. He was promoted to his current post, one of the top ones at City Hall, in 1986.

Adelman spent the bulk of his career in the San Francisco Bay area, working in various financial posts for East Bay cities and counties. He also spent five years in the private sector as a political consultant. Adelman came to Ventura seven years ago. Ventura lost Baker, its city manager of 12 years, when he quit July 1 to start a consulting firm with an old friend, a former city manager of Cincinnati. Baker was paid $108,000 a year plus benefits.

Richard Thomas, who retired in 1993 as top administrator in Santa Barbara, has been serving as interim city manager.

Baker said when he stepped down that he was tired of dealing with warring special interests.

“What bugs me most about governing is, when there’s not enough money to just throw it at a problem, the pressure groups start their lobbying,” Baker said in late June. “There’s more and more pressure on government with less and less ability to (get results).”

Indeed, immediately after Baker announced his resignation in April, the council members began bickering among themselves over what type of person should be hired as his successor. Even today, six months later, many have conflicting visions.

Councilman Jim Monahan, who served on the council that hired Baker, says that if he had his way he would just promote Millais.

Councilman Gregory L. Carson wants someone with experience in tourism-oriented cities, someone who “has been proven creative in the cities he came from before.” Carson is the council’s primary tourism proponent, expending great effort on the drive to spiff up downtown and make it more attractive to visitors.

Meanwhile, Rosa Lee Measures, one of the council’s most enthusiastic business boosters, said she is looking for a candidate with a strong financial background. Measures herself is a former banker.

“We are hearing (from residents) that this community wants someone with experience in economic development,” she said.

Council members plan to sequester themselves in a local hotel room for the interviews, which will begin at 8 a.m. today and continue Saturday morning if necessary.

Norman Roberts, the professional headhunter the city has hired to conduct the search, said he believes council members will winnow their list down to one or two candidates by Monday. Then, he said, various council members will call the finalists’ colleagues and supervisors before making an offer to the most attractive candidate.