City to Hold Meeting to Get Public Input on Next City Manager

The city will hold a public meeting to hear the community’s thoughts on the next city manager.

The community town hall will take place at 6 p.m. on March 24 in the Creveling Lounge at Pasadena City College.

Wendi Brown of Brown Creative Partners, the firm that will conduct the recruitment, will facilitate the meeting.

Masks are required.

City Manager Steve Mermell retired in December after more than 30 years with the city.

The city has a council-city manager type of government, which calls for the elected City Council to serve as the city’s primary legislative body and to appoint a city manager to oversee day-to-day municipal operations, draft a budget, implement and enforce the council’s policy and legislative initiatives, and oversee 14 of the 16 city departments.

Once the process is complete, all three of the elected mayors in modern times will have led the City Council through the process of choosing a new city manager.

Bill Bogaard led the process to choose Michael Beck and Terry Tornek was at the helm when Mermell was selected.

The city manager is one of the three positions the City Council is responsible for filling. The council also hires the city clerk and city attorney.

The City Council approved a $32,800 contract with the search in January. In September, mayor Victor Gordo said the city would conduct a national search.

So far two ad hoc committees have been involved in the search. The first one, which includes Vice-Mayor Andy Wilson and Councilmembers John Kennedy, Gene Masuda and Jessica Rivas, helped select the search firm, and the second one, chaired by Gordo and consisting of Councilmembers Tyron Hampton, Felicia Williams and Steve Madison will review the resumes and recommend who to interview.

The full council will conduct all the interviews.

During the process which brought Michael Beck — the last City Manager hired outside of Pasadena — an ad-hoc selection committee made up of then councilmembers Jacque Robinson, Sid Tyler and Margaret McAustin traveled to Riverside and interviewed Beck and several of his associates.

It is not known if the current ad-hoc committee will make site visits or how deep the vetting will go.

The city also included a link to a five minute survey that allows community members to share the characteristics, experience and background they would like to see in the next city manager.

To take the survey, vist:

English Survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/W5F6SXT

Spanish Survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/8H686PK