Interim City Manager to Get Post Permanently
City Council members plan to appoint interim City Manager Louis N. Garcia to the post permanently and will hold a special meeting this evening to hammer out the details of his contract.
“I couldn’t be happier about it,” said Garcia, 57, formerly the city manager of Hayward, a city of about 120,000 in Northern California.
For the last two months, Redondo Beach city officials have been paying Garcia a flat fee of $12,000 per month.
The major issue facing Redondo Beach is how to develop a 25-acre piece of oceanfront land next to a power plant, Garcia said.
The land, which will require environmental cleanup, is owned by Virginia-based AES Corp., which purchased the property along with the adjacent power plant from Southern California Edison Co. in 1997.
“We’re talking about destination resorts. We’re talking about parks. We’re talking about commercial space . . . even canals,” Mayor Greg Hill said of his dreams for what he says is the largest piece of undeveloped oceanfront land in Southern California.
City officials are working with several agencies, including the state Coastal Commission, the state Energy Commission and the Urban Land Institute, and hope to have a plan in place by next December.
Garcia said he is looking forward to the challenges of the post and plans to stay for at least three years.
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