Political Gumbo: City Caps Off Historic Week

Of course there was no City Council meeting on July 4, but the bullpen marches on.

I always dig Independence Day.

Nothing like a Twilight Zone marathon to remind a guy of his freedom.

I always dug the episode with Burgess Meredith, the Penguin from Batman, who just wanted to read. Finally he gets the time after a nuke leaves him the last man on the planet, and then …

Well, check it out, it’s called “Time Enough at Last.”

Mentioning at last …

The city announced the new city manager on Friday.

Miguel Márquez will lead the city starting in August.

Interestingly enough, the Northern California newspapers from where Márquez currently hails have yet to report on his pending departure from Santa Clara County, where Márquez currently serves as chief operating officer.

In that job, he was responsible for all operations in the largest Northern California county, with nearly two million residents, 22,000 full-time employees, and an annual operating budget in excess of $11 billion.

Prior to his current role in Santa Clara, Márquez served as an associate justice of the California Sixth District Court of Appeal, and as the county counsel for the County of Santa Clara.

All of that is impressive, but locally, it’s all about transparency.

Hopefully, during the vetting stage the City Council made that clear.

Márquez will have his work cut out for him.

A new CM learning the lay of the land is always challenging.

It’s not just the job, it’s also the relationships, the stakeholders and the Pasadena Way.

It has to be a lot to navigate.

Some have excelled and soared, some never truly got it while sitting in the big chair.

The new city manager will be introduced at Monday’s City Council meeting. After his work begins, the next big question becomes who will be the city’s next police chief.

If Márquez chooses an outsider, it will mark the first time since 2010 that an outside CM chose an outside chief.

In that case, City Manager Michael Beck chose Phil Sanchez to lead the police department.

The announcement capped off a history making week locally.

The city got the 710 stub back earlier in the week.

That’s the spot along the freeway that looked like the rock quarry in the opening of the Flintstones for years.

More than 50 years ago, Caltrans seized hundreds of homes in southwestern Pasadena, the city of South Pasadena and the Los Angeles neighborhood of El Sereno through eminent domain in what ultimately became a failed effort to connect the Long Beach 710 and Foothill 210 freeways.

It was a long hard battle to kill the freeway extension and at one point, South Pasadena residents were carrying most of the load.

Mayor Victor Gordo testified at the meeting in Sacramento and Steve Madison called in. Both men took victory laps at Madison’s town hall meeting last week.

But now that the city has the stub back, it’s time to start asking the big question – what to do with it?

Expect a public process.