The La Cañada Flintridge City Council is ready to hire the new city manager and is set to make the big reveal at Tuesday’s City Council meeting, where members will officially introduce and approve the new hire.
Current City Manager Mark Alexander is retiring in June after a 44-year career in local government. He was appointed to the role as the sixth LCF city manager in 2003 and is the longest to serve in the role for a municipality in the San Gabriel Valley, exceeding the average tenure by 16 years.
Since Alexander announced his plans for departure in October 2022, the city allocated up to $28,000 to conduct a national, regional and local search for the new manager through an executive search company, Tripepi, Smith and Associates Inc. There were 34 applicants, and interviews were conducted by a subcommittee and during closed sessions of City Council meetings, Mayor Keith Eich said.
Apparently, the city has found the “perfect fit” with someone who is a “part of the LCF community and been a city manager before,” but not for LCF, Eich told the Outlook Valley Sun.
The Council also moved recently to approve a change in the job description and provisions regarding the city manager position in their meeting on May 2.
“The code provides for the creation of the office of city manager and includes provisions governing city manager qualifications, council manager relations, duties and removal. These terms and conditions applicable to the employment of the city manager were implemented in 1978,” said City Attorney Adrian Guerra.
In the 20 years Alexander has served as city manager, the city has never had the need to look at and update these provisions.
“Now with the recruitment process, we were taking a look at these provisions and found that many of these provisions are [no longer required] by state law,” said Guerra.
One of those details is that the city manager’s term is called “indefinite,” which would restrict the City Council’s ability to place a term on a future city manager or even enter into a contract with one.
“There are provisions regarding removal and more consistent with due process of a civil servant employee. That again would be inconsistent with an at-will position of a contracted city manager,” said Guerra.
The city staff recommended that the council approves the code to be revised to remove provisions that will allow the City Council to negotiate more freely without any restrictions in negotiating with future city managers.
First published in the May 11 print issue of the Outlook Valley Sun.
