Brentwood is a city in Contra Costa County, California, United States. It is located in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. The population is 51,481 as of 2010, an increase of 121 percent from 23,302 at the 2000 census.City manager Paul Eldridge resigned in June to take a $270,000 job managing Union City's sanitation district. The interim manager is Steven Salomon. Brentwood is currently undergoing its Housing Element update.
Brentwood began as a farming community in the late 19th century, and still is known throughout the Bay Area for its agricultural products, primarily its cherries, corn and peaches. Due to urban sprawl many of the old farms and orchards have been replaced by suburban developments since 1990. Brentwood is increasingly residential, with the rate of population growth in the triple digits during the 1990s and 69% from 2000 through 2005.
Saturday, December 13, 2014
Brentwood, CA seeking city manager
Brentwood, California:
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It seems like the type of place Gus would go for since he likes to identify places with money and bankrupt them.
ReplyDeleteIs the Brentwood City Council brain dead? Wouldn't they investigate Vina's past, including Encinitas? Send them the link to this blogsite - it has the entire history of Vina's short, contentious stay here.
DeleteWe didn't investigate and there was plenty pre-Encinitas to discover. Or did we, and the City was satisfied that he was the perfect man for the "job?"
DeletePrimary qualifier for ENC: "He wears cool glasses".
DeleteThe future's so bright, he's gotta wear shades!
DeleteExactly. Now Encinitas can begin to crawl its way out of our financial hole Vina left us in.
ReplyDeleteThis is so obvious. Get out of dodge before the disastrous Hall park expense comes to light. You will find Encinitas is worse off financially in the next few years, and Vina will be long gone.
ReplyDeleteWe don't use the word "forensic accounting!".
Delete3:07 PM Muir has an agenda??? Pray tell - what is it???
DeleteUltimately, it is up to the Council to make the final decisions. Unfortunately, we have had ill informed members that simply took the city manager's advice and recommendations without doing much research. If this is how they run their household finances, no wonder we are in trouble.
ReplyDeleteOur City Council are idiots. Except Muir. He is self serving.
Delete12:12 PM Kettle calling the pot black.
DeleteLook at the composition of the City Council - none has the experience to make the sort of decisions entrusted to them. Of course they rely on the CM; they don't want to be exposed as being clueless. Gaspar is a housewife, Shaffer and Muir government workers, Barth a ticket puncher and Kranz a copy boy. Suddenly they are entrusted to decide on the expenditure of multi-millions on a multitude of projects?? Inmates running the asylum syndrome.
ReplyDeleteGood thing you're not incredibly arrogant.
DeleteWhen we were interviewing for CM , the position Gus got, I had a friend who was a City Manager of another city in Los Angles. Since she lived in Orange County it was a very long drive. She loves our community and decided to apply. She didn't even get an interview. To this day I have no idea why she didn't. She had been Director of Finance at another City, and took the CM job at the city she is still currently working for. I wonder what the criterion in to even get an interview with this city?
DeleteAgain, glasses.
Delete12:31 PM
DeleteWho gets to interview all depends on the number and quality of the applicants. Part of the candidate rating may have been experience in a similar city or experience with certain circumstances. Also, it may have depended on how many candidates the council wanted to personally interview. Some interview the top 10, top 7, top 3. etc. I have no idea the number or selection criteria used when Vina was hired. One added element to city manager recruitments is cities often use a recruiting firm and the final slate of top candidates may be influenced by them as well. Again, I don't know the specifics of the Vina recruitment.
This doesn't mean your friend wasn't a good candidate. It just might be that there were enough candidates that better met the city's criteria so that your friend wasn't interviewed. Given that three years have passed since that recruitment and the council has a new look, I'd encourage her to apply again.
The city used a headhunting firm. Each of the final five was interviewed by the whole council, and then by each council member individually. I believe there were between 70 and 80 applicants.
DeleteIt's hard to believe a reject from Sacramento, whose only experience was in the failed cities of Stockton and Sacramento, was in the top 5 candidates.
DeleteGoes to show that the search committee was completely incompetent and/or gave the search firm really bad criteria.
11:04AM Your concept of "arrogance" is a synonym for the "facts".
DeleteCan't handle the truth, eh?
If one vote among the nine Sacramento city council members had gone the other way, Vina wouldn't have left the state capital.
DeleteShow specific proof that Vina contributed significantly to tanking "the failed cities of Stockton and Sacramento."
Talk to the surviving members of the search committee to learn why they chose Vina.
Nobody said he contributed significantly.
DeleteThat's the point.
If he didn't contribute significantly to the tanking, then he must have done OK in Stockton and Sacramento.
DeleteShow the justification for your accusation and implication.
So he bumped along without making waves in two failing cities.
DeleteShow your justification for why he was the best candidate.
7:14 said nothing about Vina being the best candidate. 7:18 has made unsubstantiated allegations. That's lazy and irresponsible.
DeleteWhat unsubstantiated allegations?
DeleteIf Vina contributed anything to prevent the failure of Stockton and
Sacramento, please share.
You're ducking. See your 2:33 post.
DeleteI agree with WC. Explain the issue you have.
DeleteVina knowingly stripped $7 million from other worth projects for the Regional Sport Park without a discussion about the long term maintenance cost. Pathetic. That guy skated by as WC stated. He was a negative in every City he worked. Point being- he had no real world experience.
Pick a good City manager and we will be happy.
Headhunting firm from Sacramento was chosen by a panel of staff, including former Director of Planning Patrick Murphy, and Council Member Barth. That firm recommended Vina, so did Barth, and after interviewing him, the rest of Council ran with him.
DeleteThe Coast News reported on his selection, and the vote of no confidence in Sacramento. When asked about that vote, Barth claimed "it was just politics."
Her current newsletter sings her own praises. Touting her own horn is Barth's favorite tune, lately.
Revisionist history!
Delete11:07 If you don't see the "issue," nobody can spoon-feed it to you.
DeleteWhile I haven't been on a panel to select a city manager, I have recruited and been on panels that recommended candidates in local government. I see from the above discussion that no one appears to have that experience but that hasn't stopped them from acting like experts.
DeleteThere are many factors that go into any hire and that is especially true of a position like city manager. While you can say that Sacramento's decision to do an outside recruitment instead of just promoting Vina is a "vote of no confidence", it's actually a fairly common occurrence, especially if a city council has been fractious. It will be interesting to see who this council hires as there are definitely two camps on the council.
4:41 PM I guess I was wrong, you are incredibly arrogant and ignorant as well. And that is a fact.
EU: It starts with the council whose makeup was different then today. Without knowing the other top candidates qualifications and experience, it's hard to say why they picked Vina. I'm not saying Vina wasn't the best choice and I'm not saying he was. But the view here is one dimensional and bereft of understanding how the process works.
12:12 If there is any arrogant people on this blog, I have to say that it is YOU. Well, holy crap, you were on a panel that selected and hired someone. Who cares? There are people in this city and on this blog that own businesses and hire and fire people every day.
DeleteGo crawl back in bed and try starting over. What a piece of work.
12:12,
DeleteI get how it works. I'm suggesting the criteria they use are not in the best interest of the public. It's a clubby system that promotes clock-punchers and excludes reformers and outsiders.
EU is an acolyte of Ayn Rand, ergo no one in government can do anything right, ever. With this perspective, it doesn't really matter who they select. The very fact of selection defines incompetence.
Delete1:37 here. Should have added a winky-face emoticon.
DeleteJust messing with you, EU.
The vote by Sacramento was reported, and conducted as a vote of no confidence. A majority of the Council Members, there, didn't have confidence in Gus Vina's management skills; that's why he took the job in Encinitas, making the same amount, or a fraction less, than what he had been making as interim city manager in Sacramento, a City MUCH LARGER than Encinitas.
DeleteAll votes by any City Councils are political, by definition.
"The vote by Sacramento was reported, and conducted as a vote of no confidence."
DeleteLike this press, Lynn?
http://sacramentopress.com/2011/03/27/what-really-happened-with-gus-vina/
What 1:52 referred to was a Coast News Article.
Deletehttps://thecoastnews.com/blog/2011/05/council-appoints-new-city-manager-2/
"Vina recently resigned as interim city manager for the city of Sacramento in March after receiving a no-confidence vote from the council. He also served as assistant city manager, finance director and budget manager for the city of Sacramento over a 12-year period.
“We are pleased and very fortunate to have Gus join the city of Encinitas and look forward to his leadership,” Mayor Jim Bond said. Vina will be the seventh city manager in the 25 years since Encinitas incorporated. . ."
Seems as though we are getting a new city manager about every 3 1/2 years. Just enough time for the person leaving to spike his pension benefits. We citizens are getting used . . .
Delete12:15 PM
DeleteWell holy crap indeed. Just because I have the experience and know what I'm talking about. And yes I've done it in the private sector as well. But unlike you I prefer not to pull things out of my butt. And if you are an example of the competancy of those who own businesses here in Encinitas then no wonder there is such a large turnover. Luckily, I know a number of business owners here in Encinitas and they aren't as clueless as you. But hey, you've got the attitude down so who cares if you don't know what you're talking about.
It's people like you who make me want to go back to bed.
In a private meeting with Vina several month after he arrived, he said that he wanted to finish his career in Encinitas. The response back to him was exactly as the above: that the average term of a city manager here is 3½ years. Well, he leaving right on schedule.
DeleteCuriously Vina was hired unanimously by Bond, Stocks, Barth, Gaspar, and Houlihan. How did that fractious council agree? One can surmise that he carefully read the personality of each council member and in the one-on-one interview he told each exactly what each wanted to hear. No question the man was slick.
12:35 PM
Delete"I get how it works. I'm suggesting the criteria they use are not in the best interest of the public. It's a clubby system that promotes clock-punchers and excludes reformers and outsiders."
Do you even know what a city manager does on a day to day basis? The hours most put in. I've worked under good and bad city managers and know the difference. However, the city manager reports directly to the city council and they have a lot of leeway in the type of person they hire. And any city manager can be dismissed at any time on the whim of a council majority. So Vina was hired by a previous council and his contract could have terminated as soon as the new council majority took office. So a city manager pretty much follows what the council wants even if what the councils changes with elections. And a new council majority is often when you see a council and city manager butting heads.
You want to see management clubbiness, look in the corporate world. Also, you are assuming that reformers would do what you think should be done.
Bottom line, there are bad city managers out there but not as many as people here believe. Sometimes the city manager is right for the council that hired them but wrong for a succeeding council and things go sour. Usually, when things go sour the city manager moves on before the situation blows up.
5:02 PM
DeleteI just love how some people here portray Vina as some kind of Svengali. It can't be the council. It had to be Vina manipulating them. Maybe Vina can do the Jedi mind trick, "these aren't the candidates you're looking for". Awesome.
5:27, you are half right.
DeleteAll elected officials, city officials, and staff are simultaneously bumbling incompetent idiots, and genius evil masterminds.
Simultaneously.
Amazing.
4:58 PM Tale some cyanide before retiring too.
Delete6:21 PM
DeleteNot proofreading just six measly words says everything that needs to be said about you. So "tale" that.
Exactly.. at least he is out of here and we can begin to crawl out of our financial hole he left us in.
ReplyDeleteDepends on who the next CM is and whether this council understands fiscal prudence.
DeleteAll applicants be sure to wear cool glasses.
ReplyDeleteNo need - Barth's off the Council.
DeleteBarth destroyed her "legacy" as a reformer and advocate of the people. It was only the juxtaposition against the $tock$/Bond/Dalager trilogy that gave the false impression of her outsider position. When finally given the light of day to achieve some significant changes, she pulled the curtains and sold out. She won't be missed in the least.
DeleteBarth became enamored with herself and her power. If you read what she wrote in the paper about her leaving, you would think she was the only one who did anything and was our guiding light. When people think this way, they have lost all touch with reality.
DeleteI never wanted Barth on the council in the first place. I believe she is a passive/aggressive individual with a touch of a hidden mean streak. Her time on the council was one of "mother hen" trying to guide her little chickens to the coop.
Even though there were a few who gave her gifts and comments of gratitude, I can say without a doubt that the rest of us are delighted we will not have to look at her any longer.
Now she can talk non-stop to her husband. I hope he gets ear plugs for Christmas.
There are many who supported her in the past who were used and cast aside. Lack of honest is known by those who watched meetings. Most in her fan club do not know what is going on.
DeleteMost in her remaining fan club have had her dishonesty pointed out, repeatedly. It is perplexing that they are fixedly loyal.
DeleteBitter Barth better banished.
ReplyDeleteGus' going garners gratitude.
DeleteVina vacates vexatious vicinity.
DeleteMuir to put name into hat for CM job ....
ReplyDeleteYou mean burger wrapper?
Delete