From a leaked internal City of Burbank email:
Dear fellow employee......as you will read below, the Council has reached a tentative agreement with Ken Pulskamp (City Manager -Santa Clarita) to serve as Interim City Manager beginning December 3. Since the announcement of my departure, the Council has worked hard to find a Manager with the knowledge, skills and abilities necessary to successfully lead the transition of our City. They have found that in Ken Pulskamp, a person I respect deeply and within whom I have every confidence.
Chief Krakowski will serve in the capacity of Acting City Manager until Ken arrives in December. Chief Krakowski and I will select an Acting Fire Chief later today. I am very pleased with the choices made by the Council with regard to both the Acting and Interim appointments. During this time of transition, we could not ask for a more seasoned and respected leader than Mr. Pulskamp.
I guess Pulskamp will have to postpone his plans to fish and relax as he takes the helm at Burbank.
Good for him, and good for Burbank. They're lucky to have Pulskamp, a skilled administrator and authority state-wide on City government. But you have to wonder what precipitated this move?
Well, in September, Burbank City Manager Mike Fuld abruptly announced that he was going to the City of South Gate according to a Burbank city blog:
Burbank City Manager Mike Flad has tentatively accepted the position of City Manager for the City of South Gate, a community of 95,000 located in Los Angeles County.
Flad has dedicated nearly 23-years of public service to Burbank, the town where he was born and raised, serving in a variety of roles, including Park, Recreation, and Community Services Director; Assistant City Manager; and since 2009, Burbank City Manager.“Leading a city like South Gate is a great opportunity for me professionally. I’m ready for a new challenge and eager to make a difference,” says Flad. “This is bittersweet. I’ve spent more than two decades working for the citizens of Burbank. I’m not just leaving a job, I’m leaving my hometown and saying goodbye to over 1,400 City employees, of whom I could not be more proud. It has been an honor and a privilege to work with so many outstanding people in an effort to make Burbank such a special place.”
Burbank is a special place. If I were at liberty to move to any place in SoCal, I'd move there, just because the transit options are so great. There are two Metrolink lines that stop in Burbank, and the City is quite transit friendly. It's part of the SFV, yet it's a City unto itself. Who doesn't love Burbank?
Yet there's no doubt it's going to be an adjustment for Pulskamp while he searches for a new permanent City Manager.
I pinged City Communications director Gail Ortiz on the move, and she said staff will miss Pulskamp, but that this move means Assistant City Manager Ken Striplin will take over about one month sooner than expected.
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