Personnel Problem
New mayor, council botch their first big decision
By R.E. Graswich
February 2025
Unlike children, city managers should be neither seen nor heard.
They are more like cinematographers on a movie set, hired to bring light, shadows and texture to a director’s vision and make the stars look beautiful.
As city managers go, Howard Chan wasn’t Hollywood or heaven’s gift to Sacramento. He was a decent bureaucrat, loyal to his lieutenants, but detached to the point of obliviousness.
Significant problems with Chan’s departments, including animal care, parks, public works, even bridge construction, were met with stoicism worthy of Zeno of Citium.
Inside Sacramento reported on various troubles caused or exacerbated by Chan’s flock of department heads. Responsiveness from the city manager’s office ranged from little to nothing.
In such times, it’s a short stumble from stoicism to indifference.
Given these imperfections, Chan was vulnerable for dismissal when the new mayor and City Council arrived just before Christmas. Chan was on the job eight years, an eternity for city managers on I Street. His “sell by” date expired.
Or did it? When I worked as special assistant to Mayor Kevin Johnson, we burned through four city managers in four years.
The turnover taught me to dream of longevity and appreciate the difficulties that come with finding a good fit for the city manager’s corner office.
While I don’t weep for Howard Chan—his pension package lets him savor life for decades in relative splendor without work—I worry about how he was bounced.
The extraction was messy, mysterious and confusing. Residents—the people for whom City Hall exists—weren’t told why.
There was a broken promise by Mayor Kevin McCarty, who weeks earlier informed voters he supported giving Chan one more year.
Worse, there was no sensible explanation by the City Council for the city manager’s sudden severance.
There were platitudes about “fresh starts” being necessary. There were hints that a three-hour backroom meeting with Chan and the council convinced McCarty and five other members it was “time for a change.”
But there was nothing cogent or conclusive to explain why someone who spent 22 years with the city instantly deserved the boot.
Don’t forget, only a year ago the City Council loved Chan so much it rewarded him with a Himalayas-size salary, twice the money California pays its governor.
Finally, a clown show erupted. Chan exercised bumping rights and returned as assistant city manager—a move McCarty and the council didn’t predict. (Where was City Attorney Susana Alcala Wood when this happened?)
The lack of candor over Chan’s firing was a massive blunder for a City Council trying to correct course with three new shipmates after sailing in circles for eight years under Mayor Darrell Steinberg, the Captain Bligh of local politics.
For McCarty, the vote against Chan was politically tragic.
McCarty’s first act as mayor should have been big, bold, positive and memorable. Instead, it was memorable, small, secretive and nasty.
“Of course that’s not the way I wanted to start off,” McCarty tells me. “We all talked about that at the council meeting. But the times choose us. We don’t choose the times.”
The other big problem involves what happens now. New city managers don’t materialize from a LinkedIn post.
The city hires an executive recruitment company. The firm reviews its files and delivers suitable resumes to City Council. Interviews follow.
In the end, a council vote is taken. A dart is thrown.
The process is problematic. A recruitment firm might be shortsighted. It may have certain preferred candidates. Favorites might somehow miraculously rise to the top, aided by the inclusion of under-qualified candidates.
The city’s trust in the process is blind. Maybe the city gets lucky. Maybe not.
Two certainties: The recruitment firm conducts a “nationwide search,” whatever that means. And the process is expensive and disruptive.
Given the dice-roll factor, it’s not surprising that city managers are often inside hires. The “nationwide search” extends 35 feet. After Chan’s heave-ho, councilmembers shouldn’t rush to embrace a Chan-trained replacement.
Which leaves us with the dart throw. Whatever happens, McCarty and the City Council owe everybody a serious explanation.
R.E. Graswich can be reached at regraswich@icloud.com. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram: @insidesacramento.
