Ken Striplin is the new Mr. City Manager, ctd

More reader response from the rapid selection of Ken Striplin as City Manager. This reader took issue with me comparing the appointment of Saugus' new Superintendent (an internal candidate) with the City Council selecting Striplin:

Saugus USD hired a consultant to conduct an external search.  They were pretty transparent about it, put the whole process and timeline up on their website. They formed a committee of SUSD teachers, admin, parents and community members. The consultant facilitated a couple of lengthy meetings to determine needs and come up with hiring qualifications and interview questions.  There were 3 or 4 finalists who had interviews with members of the committee, and site visits to their current districts. In the end, I was told by a committee member that they recommended one of the external candidates, but the Board hired Dr Lucid anyway because they felt she was "owed" it. 

Another way of saying this is that the Saugus USD board knew who it was going to hire as Superintendent but went through the motions and expense anyway just to get the buy-in from constituent parties like parents, teachers, and administration. The Saugus board, in other words, cared that the process was open and transparent.

So why didn't the City do what Saugus did at the very least, as I argued they should have last week? Do they not care about buy-in? Another reader delivers that answer via clue-by-four:

You Santa Clarita bloggers just don't get it, or you don't remember, or you don't care. What is the number one thing you complain about during election time? Apathy. That no one cares. Or at least only 17% care. Most Santa Clarita residents don't even know Ken Pulskamp's name or what a City Manager is or does. Over 80 percent can't be bothered to vote. So why would the city waste time and money to search nationally for a candidate when A) they already knew who they were going to hire and B) few residents can be bothered to vote for City Council? You get out of government what you put into government. 

So maybe residents take more of an interest in the governing body & executive office of their local school district than they do their City government? It makes sense right- of course Saugus would spend time and money searching for an executive because parents and teachers are naturally more invested in the leadership of the schools than the general SCV resident is in the leadership of City Hall, where, more or less, Ender Math applies.

Still though, if the shocking defeat of Mayor Ender by a TimBen Boydston doesn't force the Council and staff to slow down and pay more attention to public sentiment, then what will?

Another reader has more on the last time we went through this process of hiring a City Manager:

Back in 2002, when Mr. Caravalho resigned to take the position of City Manager of Riverside, Ken Pulskamp was first appointed "Interim City Manager", and the City then accepted written applications from all over the U.S., including applications by other public employees who lived or worked in or near Santa Clarita.  The acceptance of written applications from "anyone" kept the Council in the clear, in terms of not violating California's employment discrimination laws.  

To allow "the public" to have input into the decision about who the new City Manager would be after Mr. Caravalho left, the City Council appointed a "Citizens Committee" of several members, including TimBen Boydston (who was not on the Council then), to do the first round of interviews with the finalist applicants.   That Citizens Committee interviewed many candidates, and chose Ken Pulskamp as one of the finalists.   That Citizens Committee recommended Mr. Pulskamp from among the finalists.   Mr. Pulskamp and the other finalist applicants were then interviewed by the Council, and there was a unanimous vote to appoint Mr. Pulskamp.

No argument from me here. The 2002 process strikes me as fair to all parties, slow, deliberative, and confidence-inspiring. It's a night and day different process from what happened last week where we went from Pulskamp's exit announcement to Striplin's coronation all in about 96 hours.

And you know what happens when the process isn't clear and transparent.  Brown Act violation accusations! The same reader:

Was that informal decision by the majority of the City Council, before its closed session meeting, a violation of California's open meeting law, called the Brown Act?  

No, if a City staff person acted as the go-between, negotiating with the Council members to pick Dr. Striplin.   That nuance in the Brown Act, allowing a public agency staff person to act as the go-between among a majority of the City Council members, in making a decision before a Council meeting, without the controlling Council members speaking to each other or getting input from Council members outside the controlling clique, was added by the Legislature to the Brown Act, despite the fact that most citizen activists used to be able to over-turn this sort of back room decision making as an illegal "daisy chain".  

If there was no "daisy chain" using a City staff person as go-between among the 4 "Yes" votes, to make their decision before the closed session meeting, and the 4 Council members directly discussed and negotiated the matter before the closed session of the Council meeting, then the Brown Act was violated.   However no one among the 4 Council members, or among the senior City staff, would ever admit to such a Brown Act violation. 

Keep the discussion coming! Email me at jeff@scvtalk.com

Striplin is the new Mr. City Manager 1
Striplin is the new Mr. City Manager 2


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