With the departure of Planning Services Director Kimberly Brandt, Costa Mesa has stepped up to OCEA’s challenge to “chop at the top”. Costa Mesa now has almost no experienced senior management, and will have a tough time recruiting replacements. OCEA probably didn’t mean that Costa Mesa should have a second-rate senior management of retreads and temps, but then their message of pitting one group of workers against another never made much sense.
Only Public Works Director Peter Naghavi has a firm grasp of his job and responsibilities. Tom Hatch, the recently-promoted City Manager has been on the job a few months. The new contract City Attorney came on board earlier this year after the Council didn’t like the answers they were getting from their long-time City Attorney, Kimberley Hall Barlow.
Look at the management roster below and you can see the challenge that Costa Mesa faces to rebuild its leadership, when only one of nine top City executives has more than a few months in their current position. And bear in mind that this list doesn’t reflect other employees who have left or are looking for a lifeboat.
Chief Executive Officer Thomas R. Hatch
Interim Assistant CEO Terry Matz
City Attorney Thomas Duarte
Interim Chief of Police Steven H. Staveley
Interim Fire Chief Kirk Dominic
Interim Administrative Svcs Dir Tamara LeTourneau
Interim Development Svcs Dir ??????
Interim Finance Director Larry Hurst
Public Services Director Peter Naghavi
Two of the interim directors are guys who Tom Hatch knew when he was in Brea. Larry Hurst left Brea in 2004, and Terry Matz left that City in 2009, with a hefty CalPERS pension of $151,452.84 a year. His current hours and compensation are unknown. Hurst is only working 25 hours a week for the $105,000 a year he is pulling in.
Tamara LeTourneau comes from the consulting firm Management Partners, where she ended up after being suddenly removed from her $210,000 a year City Manager position in Yorba Linda. Her hours and compensation aren’t known, bundled somewhere into hundreds of thousands being spent on consultants.
What’s going to happen? Costa Mesa’s interim managers have to run the city, complete a budget process, hire new managers in almost all senior positions, deal with a collapse of morale, and evaluate outsourcing proposals for 18 departments. We will likely see some turnover among the temps, especially the retirees who don’t need to put up with any shit.
This second-string team has to work with one of the least experienced City Councils around. The real movers, Riggy and Messy, have less than a year of experience between them, while Eric Bever and the Leprechaun Mayor are both real lightweights.
Who would want to apply to work for Costa Mesa? As Wendy Leece points out, there is a competitive market for the best people. If you were looking for a management job, would you leave a current position or move your family to go to work for an organization as chaotic as this? Or would you be like the existing employees who have been deserting the sinking ship.
Meanwhile, Ministry of Propaganda is Fully Staffed
Luckily, the Costa Mesa Ministry of Propaganda has been hiring. Two unbudgeted positions have been filled – Public Relations Director Dan Joyce and Communications Manager Bill Lobdell. The video Production Crew has been moved from Costa Mesa TV to the City Manager’s Office. You’ll be able to see all the interimi on Costa Mesa TV before they head off to their next gig.
If you have a City Council Member behaving badly, there’s a top notch crew ready to work Saturday and Sunday as they violate City policy to get the police report to the alleged assailant so they can craft their response and meet with their favorite journalist.
So It’s “Mission Accomplished” for Riggy and Messy
They’re running Costa Mesa like a business. It’s a really crappy business with high turnover, horrible morale, and a market that is rejecting their business model.
The Directors face the possibility of a hostile takeover or a shareholder revolt.
But it’s just like a business. It even has a CEO instead of a City Manager.
At some point people will grasp that well paid, experienced and knowledgeable department head level leaders are important for an effective operation. Right now though, it is popular, especialy with OCEA, to bash management level personnel as arrogant, out of touch and over-compensated, to name a few criticisms. Increasingly, there is not a cadre of experienced and qualified people seeking these upper level management jobs in the industry we know as government for many reasons, one of which is not being respected and appreciated. Perhaps Costa Mesa will be one of the first locally to find out what the consequences are of a void of management leadership. which the city is bringing upon itself.
So sad….so true….
The facts don’t just speak, they shout. When you run a city like a business you can ‘run it into the ground’ – heck GM is run like a business. I wonder what kind of town costa mesa will be when the reign of terror ends. The Republican Party of the OC brought this on, but it won’t have to deal with the consequences. We who live here will get to do that.
The voters of Costa Mesa deserve better than they’re getting from the gang of four. They’ve taken any pride a city worker had in doing a job and pink slipped it.
I wonder when the voters will do something that will get more than a disdainful glance from the dais at a city council meeting. Let me restate: When are we going to fire these guys?
the city next door to me got a Mesa guy as city manager a couple years ago, Don Lamm was his name. He already left. Probably a pension spike move. You have no fire or police chief bacause you “retained” them by letting them retire very early in life. They now head depts in other cities, getting pay and pension. Geez…crazy system. Brandt will spike her pension by working in NB for a year then retiring. THIS IS THE RESULT OF UNIONS PEOPLE
Deadwhite:
Management does not belong to any “union”. For that matter, neither do any of the other employees. The employee associations in the city are not affiliated with any larger national organizations. they stand alone and are in place for collective bargaining only. I might add that none of those associations have ever been on strike, ever held the city “hostage” to get a contract approval, or taken any job action.
The management positions (at least in the public safety departments) are not vacant because anyone “retired early in life”. That is simply false. Please try arguing with some common sense and step away from the ideology. You can’t continue to blame everything on “unions” it’s tired and it just makes you sound idiotic. You have clung to the thoughts and ideas of others, rather than look at matters objectively for yourself.