Monday Morning Bullpen: Advice For a New CM

There is no City Council meeting scheduled until the middle of September.

City Manager Miguel Márquez will sit at the big table at the next council meeting.

Márquez has purchased a house locally and has even set up a meeting with the last two city managers, Michael Beck and Steve Mermell.

Save yourself some time, pal. Here’s the best advice I can give and I have advised them all at some point or another.

Then again, that may be why none of them stuck around.

Regardless, here it is in a nutshell.

Respond to the local media.

This isn’t the place for the faint of heart. The press is always going to have questions.

Answer those questions, and don’t run, it only makes it worse.

Pasadena is about transparency.

That transparency elevates City Hall in its relationship with local residents.

Keep the local relationships strong. It will only serve you in the end.

And before any of the locals ask if my point is self serving.

Well, of course it is.

I need the City Manager to call me back after I call him. That’s the business I’m in.

Kudos to Cynthia Kurtz for being transparent everytime she has served as City Manager. It’s not easy, that’s for sure.

Self serving or not, dig this.

Pasadena residents want to hear from the CM, and local reporters want to talk to him.

When I met Márquez in July, he was personable and easy enough to talk to.

I’m hoping that pans out.

The process to appoint a new council member in District 3 is underway. Lucious Smith and Brandon Lamar have applied. It’s obvious the City Council is going to have to make a difficult choice.

Expect at least a few more names to pop up in the next week or so.

It will be interesting to see how it plays out, but I still wish this was going to the people in a special election.

It’s not, so no need to keep going around about it.

For now. All I will say is stay tuned.