New contract for Alameda’s City Manager…not so fast
At the Chamber of Commerce breakfast, which I have to admit I didn’t attend so I’m relying on feedback from a number of people here, the Mayor let slip that she thought the city should remove the “interim” from Interim City Manager Ann Marie Gallant’s title. It was an off-the-cuff remark that sort of flew by from what I understand.
But it turns out that may be a lot more effort going on behind those words, and word has it that Doug deHaan is also pushing to get the council to sign Ms. Gallant to a longer-term contract in the very near future.
This would be a terrific mistake at this time for a few reasons.
- Gallant was not hired as a part of any City Manager process, she was hired to fill the void created by deHaan and Johnson (and to some extent Matarrese) in their role with City Manager Kurita’s resignation. There was no open process of selection, no search for candidates. For a City as large and complex as Alameda, that’s a must.
- Alameda has a major election in less than a year with at minimum one mayoral seat and one council seat and possibly two. Possibly a majority of the council will be new at this time next year. They should have the ability to choose their city executive, it’s one of the only hires they get to make.
- Lastly, we’re about 6-months in on a 2-year deal. We’ve barely kicked the tires and questions are starting to come up about how the city’s running. Neither the SunCal, nor the WW issue, two of the biggest issues the council has had come to them are moving forward in a smooth or transparent manner. City Hall may be closed one day a week, there are rumblings that Bay Farm’s ambulance may be permanently shut down, and a new round of staff cuts are in the air. There are other rumblings too, but that’s a story for another time. All of this leads to a “wait and see” position, why on earth would we run into a long term contract with someone who has a history of extremely short (like about a year) stints as City Manager?
None of this adds up to “Gee, we just have to tie that down now!” Gallant isn’t even in her free agent year.
Edited to clarify that city hall may be closed on Fridays, not every day
Popularity: 3% [?]
Michael Krueger
November 5th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
“City Hall may be closed”…do you mean “City Hall West”?
John Knox White
November 5th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
City Hall may be closed once a week, on Friday
David Hart
November 5th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
I’ve worked with her& she’s first rate. She’s on top of every last detail, very hard working and a relentless advocate for fiscal discipline. It would be a major error NOT to keep her on.
John Knox White
November 5th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
All good things, fact is, there’s still lots of time left on her initial contract. This conversation makes a lot more sense in 12 months.
Lauren Do
November 5th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Hi David H.:
Regardless of how hard working and detail oriented she Ann Marie Gallant may be, I think that the next permanent City Manager should be put through the same process as the last City Manager. RFP, and from what I understand, an interview process with a cross-section of citizens representing a diversity of backgrounds.
If she is as good as everyone says then she will have no problem rising to the top of whatever heap of applicants the City should get.
But, as JKW said, there is plenty of time on her contract for discussions to be started after the November 2010 election. To try to squeeze her in and appoint her as a permanent City Manager without a process would sort of fly in the face of open and transparent government.
J.E.A.
November 6th, 2009 at 9:04 am
Where did response #6 go? The person signed with his name…nothing made up…..and I thought he made a point. One I guess you did not like ….. But it didn’t seem over the top, more like an opinion to me……. I understand no personal attacks like calling someone a jerk, etc……this just didn’t rise to that level. I thought blogs were to make people think and to get both sides to engage. Guess I was wrong, or maybe I’m just missing something.
Jack B.
November 6th, 2009 at 9:06 am
So much for high and fair minded around here, eh?
John Knox White
November 6th, 2009 at 9:29 am
Violated the comments policy and as a first time offense, I was trying to deal with it offline first before posting a comment about it. Live and learn.
To be clear, it wasn’t content related, it was multiple names related (aka, person didn’t actually use their real name and likes to post under other names).
Jack B.
November 6th, 2009 at 9:37 am
For those missing out, “Sam” said something along the lines of: poppycock. You 3 would be all for a new contract if she was for Suncal.
Lauren Do
November 6th, 2009 at 10:51 am
That is certainly “Sam’s” opinion, but I would imagine that no one really know what the Interim City Manager’s opinions on development and a host of other issues are since there hasn’t been a public vetting process of her. She may be a fiscal whiz — it was after all, the role of interim Financial Director that she first filled in Alameda — but as to her track record in the top seat, we’re all sort of in the dark about it except for what is Google-able.
If folks are okay with that because of the perception that she isn’t “for SunCal” isn’t that as bad as the accusation that we are against her because she isn’t “for SunCal”?
J.E.A.
November 6th, 2009 at 11:29 am
I actually agree that she should not be given the job before her contract is up (most likely for different reasons than you have)…..my question had more to do with why someone’s opinion would be deleted when it did not seem to be out of line. I didn’t know that this person posted under several different names and now it is a bit clearer. I just don’t want to waste my time reading a blog if a difference of opinion is going to be deleted when the author doesn’t like it. That was my only point…….
Lauren Do
November 6th, 2009 at 11:45 am
Hi JEA, considering that JKW has left up a lot of comments under the recall petition topic (and other posts) that explicitly disagrees with his opinion, it’s hard to levy the accusation that he deletes opinions that he does not like.
John Knox White
November 6th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
JAE,
I agree with you completely. I have deleted two comments in 3 years. The first was possibly libelous and extremely off topic to boot. The second was today. Both have been acknowledged on the site, though today you jumped in before I could take care of that.
My goal, which I failed in today, is to indicate when a comment is removed and why. I think that there are plenty of comments on this site that take potshots at me and my opinions. They all stand unedited. I have no interest in deleting ideas, whether I agree with them or not.
Having watched a few people log on and agree with themselves anonymously, I do think that public discourse is hurt by people trying to make it sound like there is more support for their own POV by generating sock-puppets. (not saying that was the case here). Thus, I have a no multiple-handles rule now.
David Landis
November 6th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
I think Lauren brings up a good point; why is it that we know so little about a person that is so key to this whole process?
(How much else is out there that we don’t know?)
A simple search gave me this.
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/results.html?st=advanced&QryTxt=ann+marie+gallant&type=current&sortby=RELEVANCE&datetype=6&frommonth=01&fromday=01&fromyear=1996&tomonth=11&today=02&toyear=2001&By=&Title=&at=ALL&Sect=ALL&x=43&y=12
Bypassing usual procedures, money was redirected to keeping Capitol Records in Hollywood, records show.
By Patrick McGreevy
Los Angeles Times
September 21, 2000
For six years, Nineth Anton has watched impatiently as a cluster of vacant buildings in her Hollywood neighborhood has drawn vandals, trash and vagrants.
Her frustration over the blighted properties has only grown with the knowledge that they are owned by the Los Angeles redevelopment agency.
A fading sign on one graffiti-scarred building that boasts “The Future Site of Selma Park” is no consolation.
“We need a park here, but I don’t know why they put up that sign if they weren’t going to do anything,” Anton said, staring out from her Selma Avenue apartment at the abandoned buildings across the street.
The city’s $130-million redevelopment program in Hollywood, the object of her concerns, has tallied some successes, most notably the ongoing construction of the future home of the Academy Awards–part of a $385-million shopping and entertainment center at Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue.
But Selma Park is a reminder of how the massive city redevelopment program has been a mixed bag overall. The park is victim of a scramble at all costs by city officials to keep Capitol Records and its 160 jobs from leaving its landmark building in Hollywood. The toll includes circumventing normal city procedures, city records show.
Redevelopment officials diverted $1.48 million set aside for other projects, one-third of which was for the park, to buy a Hollywood parking lot from a politically influential businessman. The agency paid nearly twice what a city appraisal said the parcel was worth, records show.
Originally, a parking garage was planned for the parking lot, located on Argyle Avenue just east of the Capitol Records tower, to serve the needs of Capitol employees. But like Selma Park, the garage has not been built. Nor will it ever be built on the site the city purchased.
Instead, the city redevelopment board is scheduled today to approve a new, multimillion-dollar deal to keep Capitol in Hollywood.
Six years after they began the odyssey, those involved in the effort to keep Capitol Records in Hollywood say that their work is about to pay dividends.
“We will have gotten at least $15 million in improvements to the Capitol Records building and we’ve kept an icon in Hollywood,” said Deputy Mayor Rocky Delgadillo, who led the pact as head of the mayor’s Office of Economic Development.
The deal to be considered today will bring the government investment in keeping Capitol in Hollywood to $4.1 million, while Capitol will put $21 million into sprucing up its campus, buying adjacent land and building a parking garage on Vine Street, according to Jeffrey Skorneck, the CRA’s project manager.
As part of the new agreement, Capitol is required to buy the adjacent Argyle Avenue parking lot from the CRA for the full $1.48 million the agency paid, although the agency would provide about $490,000 to Capitol’s renovation of a nearby office building.
Capitol plans to use the lot for surface parking in the near term but may utilize the site in the future for expansion of its campus, officials said.
The package would result in Capitol adding 80 jobs to its Hollywood operations.
“Capitol is eager to begin implementing all aspects of the deal, which will not only benefit Capitol but will make significant improvements to our Hollywood block,” said Heidi Urbina, vice president of business development for the music company.
For some city officials and Hollywood residents, how the city got to “the deal” is a lesson on how government should not behave.
At the center of that controversy is the agency’s decision to pay Ullman Investments Ltd. $1,459,000 for a small parking lot on Argyle Avenue that a city-hired appraiser said was worth $795,000. The purchase also cost the city about $24,000 in closing costs.
Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas said the transaction shows how city officials can lose sight of proper procedures and cut corners to achieve a politically popular goal, such as keeping a high-profile employer from leaving the city.
“The people of the project areas in South-Central Los Angeles have to fight for every dime they get, and here we have an action that is wasteful at best, and fraudulent at worst,” Ridley-Thomas said.
Three years ago, the agency was facing the worst financial crisis in its history, having mailed out layoff notices to 10% of its employees, put projects on hold and slashed its budget by nearly a third in the previous three years.
Against that background, agency officials involved in keeping Capitol in Hollywood hired appraiser Nancy Berry-Becker, who reported Feb. 13, 1997, that the 26,505-square-foot lot on Argyle Avenue was worth $795,000.
When Mayor Richard Riordan’s office sought federal reimbursement of $1.48 million to buy the property, federal officials rejected the request, stating that the price was overstated.
“We looked at it,” Kenneth Feldman, the project manager for the federal Economic Development Administration in Seattle, said in a recent interview. “They paid a lot more than what the property was appraised for.”
Ann Marie Gallant, deputy administrator of the CRA, asked city appraisal manager Frank McGee to reconsider the appraised value, McGee said.
“She wanted me to look it over again and see if there was a way we could come up with a higher value,” said McGee, who hired Berry- Becker for the appraisal. “I went out and rechecked all the data. I still agree with the price [the appraiser] came up with. Why [the city] paid more, I don’t know.”
Shortly after McGee told Gallant the appraisal was accurate, Gallant contacted a separate appraisal company about doing another report.
McGee said the second appraisal was done without his involvement.
“The policy is to go through me,” McGee said. “It was unusual. I don’t know if it had ever been done before that way.”
The second appraisal, completed on April 1, 1998, set the value at $1.53 million. Three months earlier the CRA board allocated $1.48 million for the purchase.
Without federal funds to reimburse the agency, officials took the money from the Selma Park project and other Hollywood programs that would have gone ahead otherwise.
Appraiser James J. Reid, who set the value at $1.5 million, said the highest and best use of the Argyle Avenue property would be for an office or retail commercial development.
The first appraisal conducted for the city concluded that the property’s location, north of Hollywood Boulevard and fronting Argyle Avenue, “would in our opinion, diminish its desirability as an improved property.”
The redevelopment board voted to pay the higher price Feb. 9, 1998, after CRA officials including Gallant assured commissioners that the purchase price was fair. At the meeting in which the purchase was approved, Gallant did not discuss the lower value set by the appraisal.
In a recent interview, board member Christine M. Robert, who voted against the deal, said she thought the board was misled into believing the appraisal supported the $1.45-million purchase price.
Robert and Ridley-Thomas are calling for an investigation by an agency independent of the CRA.
“It is absolutely outrageous the amount of money they paid,” said Chris Shabel, a member of a citizens panel formed to oversee redevelopment in Hollywood. “It’s like the Army paying $600 for a toilet seat.”
Gallant agreed in July to resign and was given four months’ severance pay. She could not be reached for comment for this story.
Steve Ullman, who sold the Argyle Avenue parking lot to the city, owns and operates dozens of parking lots in Los Angeles. The Ullman family and its businesses are major political donors, having given $7,000 in June to Delgadillo’s campaign for city attorney.
Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg, whose district includes Hollywood, said she had not been informed of the two appraisals. Goldberg said the Ullman deal was orchestrated by Riordan’s office.
“It was their call. This one was the mayor’s mistake,” Goldberg said.
Goldberg, who is running for state Assembly, returned all $5,000 in contributions from an Ullman family member in January after she said she realized that part of the development plan was still pending.
Jerry Scharlin, who took over last year as the CRA administrator, said an internal review concluded that the agency acted reasonably, and said the CRA will not be harmed because the Argyle Avenue parking lot will be sold to Capitol Records for the price the city paid to acquire it.
Asked if the Capitol Records deal was a factor in Gallant’s departure, Scharlin said, “You can read between the lines.”
J.E.A.
November 6th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
Lauren,
I didn’t think I was accusing JKW of anything (and if it came across that way it was not my intent). I just wanted to know why (a post had been removed) and he answered quickly and I agreed with him. I don’t like the idea of people responding with different names although I understand why many, including myself do not use their real names. As I said before it was just a question and now it has been answered. And, I will continue to read JKW’s blog even though I disagree with him many times (OK most times) I try to keep an open mind and I think he knows that.
John Knox White
November 10th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Comment deleted because it violated the SD&R comment policy.
http://johnknoxwhite.com/commenting-policy/
Chase
November 10th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Didn’t the city manager already lay off a bunch of the city’s staff?
And if that’s the case, how would the city manager know what’s going on with the development plan if the previous group was gone?
Now this could get fun!