Tragedy Struck During City Manager’s First Day on Job

City Manager Robert Hunt had been on the job less than eight hours when Police Chief Steve Campbell gave him the news.

An Alaska Airlines jetliner had plunged into the ocean just a few miles offshore from this coastal city.

Like most people, Hunt ran to the nearest TV for more information. A flurry of activity soon began.

As the city’s top administrator, Hunt’s role was to oversee any local response and coordinate with other agencies to determine whether the city’s small Police Department could help.

Calls went out the Sheriff’s Department, the Coast Guard, the Navy, the National Transportation Safety Board and the county Fire Department. Suddenly, the eyes of the nation were on Hunt’s small port city of nearly 23,000.

A memorable first day.

Hunt, however, said he is no stranger to municipal crises. He was Simi Valley’s assistant city manager in 1989 when a company in the city’s industrial west end was transporting a tank of chlorine that began to leak. The seepage soon spread, and city officials decided to evacuate more than 12,000 residents. With the city manager on vacation, much of the responsibility for relocating residents away from the toxic fumes fell to Hunt.

Still, the 50-year-old public administrator notes, “I’d never been through a tragedy involving so much loss of life like this,” referring to the plane crash in which 88 people are presumed dead.

Hunt is so new to his job, he doesn’t even have a permanent residence. So, he returned to his temporary quarters Monday night, a room at a local hotel, where he kept tabs on the unfolding tragedy by phone.

Frantic phone calls came and went to the police chief and the City Council throughout the night.

But Hunt said he felt the most important thing he could do was to stand back and “let everyone do what they do best.”

Councilman Jon Sharkey said the burden of responding to the tragedy has mostly fallen on the Police Department in recent days.

“We have closed the beach and have been patrolling with our four-wheel-drive and all-terrain vehicles in the event anything washes up,” Sharkey said.

The city also received a request from a captain at Point Mugu Navy base to provide security because of dozens of reporters trying to get access to the area, Sharkey said.

“The emergency response team is the city manager and police,” Sharkey said.

While the city manager’s office handles local coordination with other agencies, Sharkey said the principal work has been tackled by officials at a higher level.

“It certainly occupies everyone’s attention--and that is how it should be,” he said. “But normal business of the city must go on.”

For Hunt, that business comes as the latest chapter in a 23-year career in city administration.

Hunt began his career in 1977 after earning a master’s degree in public administration from Cal State Northridge. His undergraduate degree is from the University of Redlands.

Hunt’s first job was working for the city of Simi Valley, where his parents moved in 1963 when he was a teenager. Hunt worked his way up to assistant city manager before leaving in 1993.

He also spent two years as city manager of La Quinta, near Palm Springs. And most recently he worked as the top municipal official in Arroyo Grande in San Luis Obispo County.

He took the job in Port Hueneme, he said, because he was impressed by the quality of the city’s staff and council members. Since his arrival, he hasn’t been disappointed.

Hunt praised the coordination efforts of everyone involved in the airline disaster and said he plans to thank as many people as possible after everything calms down.

He notes that many city departments have put in extra hours to cope with the disaster. He mentioned the Finance Department, for example, which reworked the budget to come up with funds for overtime and extra staffing for officers to control parking, traffic and the beaches as family members and other mourners come to pay their respects.

But, Hunt says, he is reluctant to speak of himself--not wanting to become the center of attention in this time of tragedy. “My role is insignificant. What’s important here are the people dealing with the tragedy. What happened to me this week is unimportant in comparison to what they must be going through.”