City Weighs How, When to Fill Top Post

While city leaders here haven’t yet penned the want ad for a new city manager, they are already thinking of what qualities would make for a worthy successor to veteran administrator Grant Brimhall.

And Wednesday--a day after Brimhall announced his retirement effective Feb. 14--the Thousand Oaks City Council was already disagreeing about when his successor should be chosen. Opinions differ on whether the selection should come before or after the November election, when three of the council’s five seats are up for grabs.

The council is expected to begin a long hiring process beginning Tuesday. That is when city leaders are expected to tap an interim top bureaucrat and design a search process to pick Thousand Oaks’ first new city manager in 20 years.

Given Brimhall’s breadth of experience--and this council’s penchant for rancor--it could prove a daunting task.

“I’d like to find a Grant Brimhall,” Councilwoman Judy Lazar said Wednesday. “I told him that yesterday: I’d like to find a Grant clone.”

Selecting a new city manager is one of the most important decisions the city will make in the foreseeable future, added Councilwoman Elois Zeanah, who has clashed with Brimhall over the years.

“A boilerplate job description for a city manager is not good enough for the city of Thousand Oaks,” she said. “We need to list the qualities we want and make sure we don’t make a hasty decision. We want to know the person before we hire the person. We need someone with experience guiding a mature city who has a commitment to a sustainable environment and strong economy without depending on new taxes and new growth.”

Known for his wit and love of politics, 60-year-old Brimhall has overseen this city’s growth from the days of small cottages and mom-and-pop groceries to its present status as home to the Civic Arts Plaza, vast expanses of open space and an enviable housing stock.

Those accomplishments have earned him praise from some, but others consider Brimhall to be too friendly with developers.

After two decades of service, Brimhall made the emotional announcement Tuesday night that he intends to leave the city he loves to spend more time with his wife, Avis, and his six adult children and nine grandchildren. He had just returned to work after two months of recovering from a quintuple bypass operation.

From the city’s low crime rate to its first-class library, Brimhall’s imprint is everywhere. And his shoes will be hard to fill.

In his absence, this much appears likely, council members said Wednesday:

Brimhall’s top deputy, MaryJane Lazz, seems a shoo-in for the interim city manager post and a strong candidate for the permanent position, if she is interested.

A municipal veteran herself, the assistant city manager filled in for Brimhall for the past eight weeks while he recovered from open-heart surgery.

That said, city leaders appear committed to a nationwide search.

“MaryJane comes with impeccable credentials and she would be very, very highly recommended by Grant,” Councilman Andy Fox said Wednesday. “She would be in the final group [of candidates] for selection. But I think we owe it to the community and the citizens to open the process up. We need a national search to get the very best candidate selected.”

While no one called Wednesday about the pending city manager vacancy, the news of Brimhall’s departure will travel fast in city management circles, where he was well-regarded, Lazar and Fox said.

“I expect we’ll get a lot of interest,” Lazar said. “Something that might concern a candidate is the fact that we have a divided council on a lot of issues, but this is a plum of a city.”

A brewing debate, though, is when to hire a replacement.

A sophisticated search can take three to six months, and council members are split on whether the clock should start ticking before or after November.

“We should use due diligence and get a city manager on board within the next four to five months,” Fox said. “We aren’t looking for the faint of heart; we’re looking for an oak tree, so to speak, someone who is going to hold strong no matter which way the wind is blowing. I think we should move forward and hire someone who will last through the election.”

Lazar agreed, saying the city should not be left with a leadership void for any longer than is necessary to conduct a thorough search. With the right headhunters, she predicted, a city manager with the council’s unanimous backing can be found within four months.

Zeanah begged to differ.

“I think it would be such a disgrace to this community to hastily select a new city manager, particularly when we’re heading into a watershed election,” she said. “This community will select a majority of five council members in just a few months. I think it would be a slap in the face of the community to hire a city manager before November. Frankly, I don’t believe an adequate job can be done by then.”

This time around, Zeanah said she would like to see the new city manager placed on a finite contract that is periodically up for renewal. Brimhall’s employment contract, by comparison, was open-ended.

Whichever direction the council chooses, Brimhall vowed Tuesday night to help it through the process.