A little less than two years after scandal nearly destroyed the Los Angeles suburb of Bell, a new and permanent city manager has been named. Doug Willmore will assume his new duties on June 1.

The city council voted 4-0 on Tuesday to appoint Willmore, who was selected out of a field of 72 applicants. In his new role, Willmore will earn $175,000 per year. His contract will be for three years.

“One of the reasons I considered Bell was because of the respect that I gained very quickly for the City Council members,” Willmore said in a statement. “In addition, in meeting with a group of citizens during the interview process, I fell in love with the citizens and the community in just a brief meeting. I don’t shrink from the issues that Bell faces, and I think the future is a bright one.”

Originally posted at www.calpensions.com
The nation’s largest public pension fund, CalPERS, is holding a meeting in San Diego this week to discuss investments in California infrastructure, this one focusing on energy.

Previous closed-door meetings with a wide range of interests (held in Sacramento, San Francisco and Los Angeles since March) have looked at transportation, water and infrastructure investing in general.

In a happy convergence, pension funds are moving into infrastructure to reduce inflation and market risk, while deficit-ridden governments are deep in bond debt and looking for new ways to rebuild and expand crumbling public works.

The Sacramento city council is considering a measure for the November ballot that would increase the local sales tax. This comes as a new poll shows that Sacramento city residents would support the tax if it went to fund core city services and public safety.

The poll, which was commissioned by city manager John Shirey showed that roughly 70 percent of voters would be in favor of the new sales tax. However, the Mayor has already announced his resistance to the move, potentially creating an inter-council or inter-city showdown.

Sacramento has already gone through several consecutive years of significant cuts due to budget constraints. Most recently, the public was told that as many as 60 police officers and three dozen firefighters would lose their jobs should the city need to make additional cuts. While this measure would not be approved until several months into the next fiscal year, it could save some of those currently on the chopping block.

The proposed increase of .5 percent would bring the city’s tax rate to 8.25 percent.

At the request of First District Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt, the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors approved funding for a variety of capital improvement projects and program support for nonprofit organizations, including charitable, educational and cultural organizations.

Among the projects and programs approved for allocations from First District Discretionary Funds are $75,000 for the Lane House Museum at Calico Ghost Town regional park for renovations critical to the protection and preservation of historic artifacts, $20,000 to Desert Manna Ministries for the purchase of a refrigeration truck, and $30,000 to the Oak Hills Community Center for installation of heating and air conditioning and other upgrades.

Supervisors also approved allocations of $15,000 to the Boys and Girls Club in Adelanto, $10,000 to the Family Assistance Program for continuation of domestic violence services, and $5,000 to A Better Way, also for domestic violence services.

In November, San Jose voters will decide whether the city’s minimum wage should increase to $10 per hour, as the city council decided Tuesday night to defer to the public.

The issue came before the council after students at San Jose State ran their own petition drive that gathered enough signatures to qualify a measure. That gave the city council the option of either enacting the measure outright or deferring to voters on the November ballot. Should the council had approved the measure that night, the minimum wage would have increased from the state level of $8 per hour to $10 per hour, plus annual adjustments for inflation.

It’s based upon the model in San Francisco, where the minimum wage recently increased by 32 cents to $10.32 per hour.

At the end of two hours of public comment, the council was presented with two options. The first would have immediately approved the new wage – but was defeated 8-3. The other deferred the question to a November ballot, and it was approved unanimously.

AB 506 gives a city and its creditors 60 days to restructure finances – 90 days if necessary. In Stockton, the first city to enter into the process, parties agreed that 30 additional days could be helpful.

The city and its creditors now face a deadline of June 25 to address the financial crisis and stave-off insolvency or bankruptcy.

“This is a good sign,” said Mayor Ann Johnston in a statement released Monday. “It means that our creditors understand our fiscal circumstances and it indicates that they believe that it is worth the investment of time and resources to work toward a solution.”

The city entered into the AB 506 process in February to address severe crisis in its General Fund – roughly $155 million of the city’s $521 million budget.

Already embattled Police Chief Michael Meehan is receiving more bad press as reports come to light that he sent 10 police officers to Oakland in search of his son’s stolen iPhone.

Meehan and how he exerts his influence and power as Chief had already been under investigation, stemming from an incident where he sent an officer to a reporter’s home in the middle of the night to demand changes to an article that negatively reflected upon the chief. Now, questions are being asked about why so many officers were sent into neighboring Oakland in search of a single iPhone.

The phone had been taken from his son’s unlocked locker at school. But because it was equipped with locating software, the Chief was able to identify its relative location in Oakland. He then apparently asked stolen property detectives to investigate, and four sergeants went to Oakland, where the asked for additional officers from a drug task force to join them. Despite having the location pinned to within a block, the phone was not recovered.

Complying with federal reform mandates may cost the Oakland Police Department and the City of Oakland millions more, as they look to purchase a new computer system to track police data and complaints against officers.

The current system, which was built in house despite the purchase of a $315,000 system, crashes, fails to track progress, and has hindered reforms to police oversight that were mandated by the federal court system. When working, the system can help identify problem behaviors or trends in officers and allow supervisors to step in before lines are crossed. However, the system is eight years old, leading to glitches and crashes.

The software’s effectiveness is impeded by how cumbersome it is. Information does not automatically populate into the database, and each case must be manually entered, a huge task for an already under-staffed department. While officials have not released information on the bid for the new system, it is estimated that the cost could exceed $3 million.

Originally posted at www.foxandhoundsdaily.com
Gayle Uilkema, a woman who served as a Contra Costa Supervisor in District 2 for 16 years, passed away this past weekend from ovarian cancer.  She was only 73.

Gayle’s record of public service is well known – her 16 years as a Supervisor was preceded by 19 years on the Lafayette City Council.  She was a mentor to women young and old and an advisor to many who took the chance to run for municipal, county and state positions. Words and advice from Gayle were memorable and meaningful – she had a way of turning a phrase in a pro-woman manner which was empowering.  This poise was reminiscent of the reason she decided to run in the first place in 1978.  There was a lack of recreation classes for her two young daughters.  She was told by city officials that they didn’t need programs because everyone in Lafayette had a big back yard.

The California City Management Foundation has launched a new series of interviews with some of the state’s city manager. The sixth installment is a discussion with Jeff Kolin of Beverly Hills.

The conversations highlight how the council-manager relationship, accomplishments, and what about their jobs they truly love.