What initially prompted you to get involved with local government?
My immigrant grandmothers. My grandmother on my mother’s side instilled in me from a young age the meaning of government playing an important role in our lives. My other grandma would share with me how important the United States is to her and how much she respected our country for the opportunities it afforded to her and her family and allowed them to live the American dream. So you could say that the idea of public service truly came from both my grandmothers’ passion for service, respect for our country and patriotism. Later, while working in management in the private sector and completing my undergraduate degree in Political Science at Cal Poly Pomona, I came across a newspaper article that would change my life. Although I was happy in my current career and making great strides for the company I was working for, I remember thinking to myself what real change or difference I am really making other than improving the company’s bottom line. One day during a work break, I remember opening the local newspaper and seeing a two full-page feature of city managers of the San Gabriel Valley. The article highlighted their name, the city they worked for and a quote as to why they liked being a city manager. I remember telling my political science college counselor later that day that I knew I wanted to become a city manager. She indicated that my timing was good because it just so happened that the school was offering a joint undergraduate & master’s co-course being taught by a current city manager. I listened very intently in that class and recall asking the professor after every class multiple questions about local government and you could say from that point on, I was hooked. I subsequently applied for and was accepted as the first Environmental Analyst for the City of Sierra Madre where I was able to take my private sector management skills and passion for helping people and apply it to all things local government.
Why did you want to become a city manager?
Well, I have always had a passion for helping people ever since I was a little boy. I remember at five years old going down to a neighbor’s house and helping clean out their horse stalls and it might sound odd, but I received a lot of joy in just doing the work and being helpful. From a management perspective, I also love to analyze long-term problems and come up with a unique or creative solution and in some cases, develop an idea or solution that’s never been done before. Some would say in the profession that I’m a risk taker, but I believe managed risk is worth taking if it’s designed to fundamentally help the people we serve, such as creating a fire department to improve response times, which is what I did while I was city administrator in Placentia. Going back to that newspaper article, I remember as I read through it, I couldn’t help but revisit every quote multiple times and knew instantly that I could merge my two passions in one career: a love for helping people and a love for finding creative solutions to long-term problems. One quote that really resonated with me was how one city manager indicated that in their role they can create quite a lot of positive change in their community and help so many people in such a meaningful way. That struck a deep chord with me and has always guided me in fulfilling the role of how I see the city manager’s role. That’s why the city manager position is truly a calling and I’ve been blessed to have been able to apply these two passions in all of the communities I’ve worked for, which include the cities of Sierra Madre, Claremont, El Monte and Placentia.
What was the most important part about your job as a city manager?
The most important part of my job was to lead by listening first and working together with the City Council, community and staff to develop a common vision and solution to address a long-standing problem or issue. However, you can achieve nothing without a great team and throughout my career I’ve been able to build and maintain excellent teams that I’ve worked alongside and led them to success while delivering positive change to the communities I’ve served. And in some cases, we’ve developed an award-winning project or program that not only addressed a significant policy issue such as homelessness, but also demonstrated leadership by being the first of its kind in California or Orange County. In my last role in Placentia, I assembled a truly dynamic team and was privileged to serve in the city administrator role for nearly 10 years, and when you can create that level of stability in the city manager position and your organization, you can deliver some amazing accomplishments for the community you serve. I’m proud to say that as a team we were able to make real and lasting significant improvements in addressing local issues that many cities are grappling with today such as homelessness, affordable housing, economic development, master planning, public safety enhancements, efficiency, sustainability, stability of city hall (workplace culture) and fiscal sustainability & transparency.
Which city project are you most proud of during your years as a city manager?
That’s a hard question to answer, but I would say that the city project I’m most proud of is creating Veterans Village, the first permanent supportive housing development for homeless veterans in California. This first one was developed in 2014 in El Monte and was envisioned when I was the city’s Economic Development Director. I came up with the idea after unfortunately learning that that there were over 8,000 homeless veterans living in LA County alone at that time. The development included forty (40) furnished apartment homes, a courtyard, community garden, recreation room, energy efficient design and appliances, computer room, library area, resident services offices with services provided by Veterans Affairs as well as non-profit specifically geared toward assisting veterans with programs and benefits. This facility not only helped you get off the street and into stabile housing but also provided wraparound services such as counseling, vocational training, job placement, resume building, and family reconnection services. Additionally, programming took place such as exercising, classes, yoga, meditation; all of this support system being designed to provide a stable environment to ensure our veterans could become successful. It was not only the first-of-its-kind, but an unbelievable example of how we can provide dignity and respect to our veterans in a meaningful way, as I have always believed that our veterans deserve the best that we can offer. As we conducted the grand opening and World War II era planes were doing flyovers to honor the project, I distinctly remember that we had members of Congress, the state legislature, leaders from the Pentagon and many city and county leaders in attendance. During my speech I indicated that while we were incredibly proud to build this facility and showcase the project, what was most important about that day was that they all attended and could truly see the value of this state-of-the-art facility that was created for our veterans. I asked for a call to action and that they take the funding and development blueprint and build a Veterans Village in their own communities and continue to replicate the project until we can fully address the problem of veteran homelessness in our cities. Subsequently, when I came to Placentia, I realized that there wasn’t a Veterans Village in Orange County and I’m proud to say that we built a 50-unit Veterans Village in partnership with Orange County which had even more amenities. These two world-class facilities have served as excellent and creative examples of one approach toward addressing homelessness and I’m proud to say that there are now 8 Veterans Villages throughout California and 2 more on the way, not to mention many other developers have partnered with cities to create their own similar versions. This all started with a simple idea that hadn’t been done before and it’s amazing to see how many cities have since gone on throughout California to build these facilities to serve those veterans that have so graciously served us.
What are the greatest challenges facing city managers in California today?
There are many challenges, but the largest ones are fiscal sustainability and resilience, employee recruitment and retention including adapting to generational differences, homelessness, local control and state legislation, economic development, affordable housing, and infrastructure. As City Administrator of Placentia, I led our city team to facilitate an ambitious goal that would address several of these challenges in one major project. And this is how the first Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District (EIFD) in California was born. The Placentia EIFD as its now known, was a unique and creative partnership with the County of Orange to revitalize Old Town Placentia, an older and dilapidated portion of the city’s downtown area that had turn of the century infrastructure and a lack of economic investment and housing. This ambitious project involved both the City and the County pooling their property tax increment based on a geographic area to create bond funding to construct $10 million in new high-quality infrastructure. This infrastructure plan included new streets, sidewalks, utility improvements, light poles, music speakers, street furniture, crosswalks, trees & drought-friendly landscaping, bike & scooter stations, wayfinding directional signs and many other high-quality amenities designed to create a multi-modal and pedestrian-friendly environment where you could shop, dine play and work. I would often tell our team that building this is a little bit like building our own Downtown Disney, which was exciting. Installing the new and enhanced infrastructure will effectively act as an inducement for developers by providing built out amenities saving both time and cost on future developments. This in turn, will ensure a more streamlined delivery of market-rate and affordable housing, as well as build new office and commercial spaces in this promising downtown area. The Placentia EIFD project also has noteworthy economic and housing impacts that address many challenges that our cities face today. The Placentia EIFD is projected to create 1,600+ housing units, 3,900+ construction jobs, 1,150+ permanent jobs, significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and $850 million in regional economic output. Since the project package was put together, many agencies throughout California have since inquired about the EIFD, and the Governor’s Office has also visited the area twice to see how everything was structured. I have also spoken at the League of California Cities conference, CALED and many other conferences to share how this unique project was delivered. In the beginning, many parties told us that this couldn’t be done and I’m proud to say that the Placentia EIFD infrastructure is slated to begin construction in the spring with several hundred housing units having already been constructed.
What is your favorite way/place to interact with residents of your city?
My favorite way to interact with a resident is a personal phone call or even preferable is to meet with them face-to-face. While my calendar tends to be very busy, I believe a personal meeting can facilitate a better understanding of the person’s story, hearing the inflection in their voice, the concerns they have and what they are aiming to accomplish rather than just relying upon an email. It also allows me to begin to facilitate a relationship built upon trust and an understanding for our residents that the city manager’s office is a safe place where you can air your grievances and expect that that we will take your concerns seriously and follow up on them with the highest level of customer service available. Throughout my career, I have instilled a philosophy that many of my team members would recognize and that is that cities should always aim to deliver “Nordstrom” customer service; meaning that as staff you should go above and beyond what’s expected of you to ensure the person’s needs are addressed. For example, when people come into city hall to look for a particular department, we don’t just acknowledge them and point them in the right direction; we come around from the city hall counter, personally walk them over to the department they’re seeking, introduce them to a staff member by name and see if they need anything else, such as a water or additional information while they’re waiting. Coming into a city hall can be incredibly intimidating for anyone and it’s our job to create a welcoming atmosphere where residents and other constituents can expect to feel welcomed and have their concerns addressed as efficiently as possible. This in turn creates a positive experience and likely one that they’re not used to in government and that is how we begin to change perceptions and build trust in what we do as civil servants. Another example of this level of customer service being applied in action, is when residents came to a Placentia City Council meeting and provided public comment, I would have a department head provide them a business card and reach out to them in real time (yes, during the meeting) or during a break to see how we can address their concerns or setup a meeting with them the next day to discuss further. I recall that many of these residents were completely blown away and didn’t expect to receive such a level of service so quickly from their local city and were used to their complaints not being heard. It’s this type of customer service philosophy that I have embraced and hope to continue facilitating and instilling in the cities I serve.
What is the role of a city manager in upholding the public’s trust in local government?
Trust should be at the very forefront of every decision we make as city managers. And as I mentioned earlier, it’s our job to lead within the organization and externally in continually working to build and maintain that trust. Government in general is challenged with public trust. Whether it’s a false allegation or perceived narrative highlighted by a local newspaper or something happening at the State or National level, the public tends to lump these articles together as if they are applicable to all forms of government. Knowing this, it’s more important than ever to demonstrate how we as city managers can work with our city councils and staff to build that trust and what tangible steps, we can take to show the public we are principled and ethical stewards of their taxpayer dollars. Additionally, I would say as city managers we have a duty to go above and beyond simply helping the community we serve, but to help colleagues in the profession learn from your lessons or what steps they too can take to safeguard their communities. For example, shortly after being appointed city administrator in Placentia, I discovered a multi-million-dollar embezzlement by a former finance employee. While I was able to work with our team, the FBI and the district attorney’s office to recover nearly 90% of those funds, the trust had been lost. Therefore, I implemented a variety of transparency measures such an electronic warrant register, a fraud hotline, triple-redundancy approval of large electronic financial transactions, changed our warrant register approval process, credit card approval process, implemented multiple budget enhancements to make it easier for residents to understand, included the City Treasurer in all wire transactions, required approval of the Mayor and Council in all of my credit card transactions and developed numerous internal controls that were ultimately recognized by the Government Finance Officers Association. I explained all these items thoroughly to the public, including how many funds were recovered and how each internal control contributed toward safeguarding public dollars. From there, we created a PowerPoint presentation and as I like to say “went on tour” to the League of California Cities City Manager’s Conference and the California State Municipal Finance Officers Association to discuss fraud and embezzlement. Keeping in principle with passion of helping others, my goal was to share with colleagues the security measures we put in place, the lessons learned, as well as how to discover fraud in any local government setting. I still have city manager colleagues to this day that reference that presentation and stated that they went right back to city hall to implement some of my recommendations to improve their financial controls. Ultimately, I believe we were successful in Placentia in building that trust because just two years later, when we placed a 1 cent sales tax on the ballot, it passed overwhelmingly by the community. I’m not sure many communities can say that they had a $5M embezzlement, which was one of the largest in Orange County history and two years later successfully passed a ballot measure with overwhelming community approval. While there is always more work for city managers and cities to do in this area, I believe that when I was City Administrator in Placentia we made remarkable strides in building trust and demonstrating value in the work we did as city staff.
How are cities shaping the future of California?
Cities are on the forefront of embracing change. Whether that’s through adding several thousand units of new housing, building affordable housing, addressing homelessness, creating new economic development opportunities or developing new infrastructure that addresses a common need. For example, during the pandemic when our local school district was required to conduct classes online, teaching became challenging for many families in Placentia that didn’t have desk space or a reliable internet connection. This problem is even more pronounced in disadvantaged neighborhoods when you see that large-scale telecommunications companies will only invest in fiber internet connections in more affluent areas of a city because those residents will pay for premium plans, and thus, a higher return on investment. This is commonly known as the “digital divide” and as a city manager I was not motivated by profit, but by the value of the local government service that I can provide to improve everyone’s quality of life, thereby bridging this community divide. I believe the fundamental question of government should be asked, does it improve your life and can we have some influence in facilitating that quality of life? If the answer is yes, than we as city managers and cities in general can address these inequities through creative and sustainable delivery approaches toward infrastructure. As an example of this philosophy in practice, when I was City Administrator in Placentia, in order to address the digital divide problem in our community in a strategic and relatively streamlined way, we negotiated and entered into a public-private partnership with a corporation that was willing to invest $35 million into installing a first-of-its-kind high-speed fiber optic network to the city’s 20,000 homes, businesses and institutions with speeds up to 10Gbps, making it one of the fastest internet systems in California. The best part of this creative 2P project was not that it was just an affordable way to deliver high-speed internet, but that as a city, we were able to serve all customers the same to ensure everyone had equal access to the latest high-speed network. This is just one example of how cities are shaping the future of California and I’m proud to share that this innovative project went on to receive the prestigious Helen Putnam Award from the League of California Cities and this was Placentia’s first time receiving this honorable designation.
When you’re not busy working, how do you like to spend your time? What hobbies do you have?
When I’m not working, I really enjoy watching soccer (football) highlights from professional leagues throughout the world, including MLS here in the United States. I’m an avid Los Angeles Galaxy fan going all the way back to 1996 when they played their first game. I also really enjoy watching movies with my wife and three daughters. Also when I have time, I enjoy doing cardio and strength training in the morning as I feel it helps me set a good foundation for the day and unload some stress. As far as hobbies go, I like reading books and riding my mountain bike and finding new trails. It’s always fun to discover a new trail that you’ve never been down before.
What has been one of your greatest professional challenges, and how did you address it? What has your work in public service taught you?
One of my greatest professional challenges was when I was with the city of Claremont in 2010. I was the Economic and Administrative Officer in the city manager’s office and this was during the Great Recession period. Cities throughout California were conducting layoffs and Claremont conducted four rounds of layoffs over a period of two years. Unfortunately, my position was included in the fourth round. At the time we were very concerned because my wife was pregnant with our third child, we were on a single income and we didn’t know how things were going to work out (that’s why her name is Faith by the way). I was told that although my position was being laid off they still needed my assistance in Public Works as there was an interim director at the time and because of my public works experience, I was tasked with a unique high-profile project. You see Claremont’s solid waste collection was operated in-house by their public works department; however, the division was net negative. This city-run operation had approximately 30 employees and the city council gave direction to examine contracting out this service through a bidding process, which would have meant that whatever company was awarded the bid, those employees would have either been laid off or absorbed by said franchise hauler. My task was unique in that I was to submit a bid on behalf of the city employees and represent this division against the private waste haulers. Having experience in solid waste operations and knowing that we could accomplish saving these jobs while putting together a great package, I made it my mission to submit the best bid possible. Once I knew the task, I shared with all the division employees at the beginning that I was going to do everything I could to ensure they could retain their jobs and not have to have the conversation I just had had with my wife and effectively made them part of the mission. I subsequently assembled a team of staff in the field and in the office and we put together a comprehensive proposal that had draft contracts, that when executed, would result in some of the lowest collection rates in the San Gabriel Valley for many years while saving the city approximately $1 million annually in expenditures. At the end of the process, the city manager and assistant city manager indicated that they were both incredibly impressed by how comprehensive and thorough our proposal was and that we had beaten every other private sector offer submitted. Based upon the proposal submitted by the team and I, the city kept the operation in house for the long-term, thereby saving the city positions. The best part of that experience was going back to the public works yard, assembling everyone in that room and telling them that we had done it, we beat the odds and had a more efficient city proposal than the private sector and had also achieved the city’s goals. Most importantly they got to keep their jobs and didn’t have to worry like so many other people at the time. To say that they were surprised that we created a proposal that beat out the private sector is an understatement. When I drive through Claremont to this day and see city solid waste trucks still operating, I remember the story and smile knowing that I had a hand in substantially improving that service for everyone involved. In management we’re often taught about the bottom line, but I’m a firm believer in creating a culture of family and stability as much as possible. I often use the phrase we grow together and we hurt together. There are numerous studies that show that the most successful organizations in the world minimize or avoid layoffs and develop real institutional success for the long-term. This idea of stability in turn creates real value amongst the team and creates a mission-focused work culture. Work in public service has taught me that you can make a real difference in people’s lives. With the right leader, dynamic team, and strategic vision sprinkled in with some innovation, the sky’s limit on what you can achieve for your city and how much of an impact you can make on its landscape. While the aforementioned project is something that only a handful of people know about, thousands of households, businesses and those employees benefited immensely and that’s one of the best feelings of being a civil servant leader, is knowing how many people you have helped along the way, both the community and your staff.
What book is on your nightstand right now?
Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson.