[Editor’s Note: Mr. Hostetter is a reporter for the Fresno Bee, where this story originated.]
Re “Mark Scott Leaves Fresno for Burbank”
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Mr. Rudd, Mr. Scott, Ms. Swearengen. Photo, Fresno Bee.
Dateline Fresno – Mark Scott is on his way out as City Manager, Bruce Rudd is on his way in, and the political waters at Fresno City Hall are turbulent again.
Mayor Ashley Swearengin announced Wednesday that Mr. Scott is leaving his job to become city manager in Burbank. The mayor needed only to look over her right shoulder at the hastily called news conference to find Mr. Scott’s replacement — Asst. City Manager Rudd.
Ms. Swearengin had high praise for Mr. Scott, saying he “has served as city manager at a very unusual time — unusually challenging and unusually busy.”
She said Mr. Scott “played a critical role in developing the fiscal sustainability policy the administration and the City Council adopted last spring. And, thanks to his efforts, we are now on a path to pay off negative funds that threaten our city’s solvency.”
The mayor lauded Mr. Rudd for his “problem-solving capabilities, creativity and can-do attitude.”
Mr. Scott, always gracious in public during his three years at City Hall, stayed in form yesterday.
“I am privileged to have served in the Swearengin administration, and it has been an honor to do so in my hometown,” said the 1967 Fresno High School graduate at City Hall.
“I’m honored and humbled by this appointment and the confidence that Mayor Swearengin has in me,” Mr. Rudd said.
That was it. In what seemed like a heartbeat, an administration under intense political and financial pressure for the past year changed its chief administrative officer with no pomp and little sentiment.
Mr. Scott, 63, stays at the helm until July 19. Mr. Rudd, 57, takes over the next day.
According to city records, Mr. Scott’s base salary in the fiscal year ending June 30 is $169,550. Mr. Rudd’s is $157,920. City officials said Mr. Rudd’s new salary still is being negotiated.
Was She Caught Unaware?
No one hinted that Ms. Swearengin told Mr. Scott to look for another job, or even nudged him in that direction. A former city manager in Beverly Hills and Culver City, Mr. Scott is headed back to a Southern California that as an adult he found more satisfying than the San Joaquin Valley.
It was suggested in the news conference that the Scott-Burbank pairing came as something of a surprise to Ms. Swearengin. The mayor didn’t give much of a timeline on what she knew of Mr. Scott’s changing ambitions. She said only that the courtship of top city officials by other employers is part of the business.
Mr. Scott, though, did note that he quickly grasped the “tension” inherent in Fresno’s government of two equal branches, the executive (strong mayor) and legislative (City Council). Mr. Scott did not say so, but the city manager in such a system often gets pounded from both sides.
Burbank, with its city manager-council form of government, is more his style, Mr. Scott said.
Heaps of Praise
City Council members were generous to Mr. Scott’s legacy and hopeful about Mr. Rudd’s possibilities.
“What Mark brought to the city was a high level of sophisticated financial knowledge,” said Council Member Lee Brand, who often saw eye to eye with Mr. Scott. “He didn’t hesitate to tackle the negative fund balances. He got us to talking about structural deficits.”
Council Member Sal Quintero and Mr. Scott sometimes joked on the dais about their high school days in mid-1960s Fresno. However, their professional relationship had moments of strain.
“He’s got a job to do — he must carry out the philosophy of the administration,” Mr. Quintero said. “I understand that,”
Council President Blong Xiong, who is more often in Mr. Quintero’s camp than Mr. Brand’s, said Mr. Scott may have accepted the Fresno job without realizing how much politics had changed in his hometown.
“You take Fresno and you take Beverly Hills — that’s a big difference,” Mr. Xiong said.
Mr. Rudd is likely to enjoy a honeymoon, however brief, when he greets the Council next month as city manager.
Mr. Rudd’s promotion “is a great move,” Mr. Xiong said.
The mayor, Mr. Brand said, “made the right call.”
What Stability?
City Hall, said Council Member Clint Olivier, “won’t miss a beat with Bruce.”
Still, Mr. Rudd will take command of an operation filled with tense labor negotiations, a Council split 4-3 on most big issues and a city budget that may have hit bottom but is far from stability.
Andy Souza was city manager for the first year of Ms. Swearengin’s first term. Mr. Souza resigned and is now chief executive of the local Community Food Bank. Mr. Rudd was interim city manager until Mr. Scott was hired in early 2010.
That Mr. Scott would depart after three years is no surprise.
The hothouse of Fresno politics has always been brutal on its chief administrative officer. The conventional wisdom at City Hall used to be that city managers come and go as regularly as Detroit changes car models.
That was true in the late 20th century when the city manager reported to seven Council members sometimes characterized as seven little mayors. It has proved true since Fresno went to a strong-mayor government in 1997, with the city manager reporting to a chief executive who often locks horns with the Council.
Mr. Scott sometimes peppered his comments from the dais with memories of downtown’s Fulton Street before it became a mall. He made no effort to hide his affection for the Fresno of his youth. Once he recalled with feeling his presence at Robert F. Kennedy’s rally at Fresno State during the 1968 California Democratic presidential primary.
Mr. Scott assumed the Fresno city manager’s role with a reputation as a consensus builder. Some of his efforts clearly required such administrative tact.
Mr. Scott got here to find the ball already rolling on redevelopment plans for Fulton Mall and surrounding neighborhoods. He kept things moving.
Last year, Mr. Scott and Ms. Swearengin crafted their fiscal sustainability policy, a manifesto to economic growth and prudent spending. He tried to give it teeth.
Mr. Scott championed a 2035 general plan update that calls for less sprawl and more inner-city revitalization. He vowed to turn this dream into reality.
Mr. Scott loyally pushed Swearengin’s effort to outsource the city’s home trash service. He pointed no fingers when voters rejected the idea.
There was trouble on Mr. Scott’s watch as well.
The city, for reasons never made clear, severed its ties to the high-toned (and expensive) Pasadena firm that was to take the lead in planning downtown’s rebirth.
The federal Housing and Urban Development wrote a scathing report on the city’s mishandling of housing funds and procedure.
The planning department went through a director who hardly made a ripple, then a reorganization that gutted a code enforcement division to such an extent that it attracted Council criticism.
In the midst of everything, Mr. Scott suffered a heart attack that sidelined him for several weeks.
Labor relations almost always were testy, highlighted by a bus drivers conflict that nearly led to a strike. The parks department had to plead for volunteers to clean the green space. The police department grew so small that victims of property crime were told to file a report online. Mr. Scott even took over day-to-day management of the planning department.
Money was Mr. Scott’s biggest problem. The city’s budget was shrinking when he came on board. It got smaller until the eve of his departure. Mr. Scott as the chief administrative officer routinely got blamed for the fallout from Fresno’s poverty.
But yesterday Mr. Scott praised the city’s work force of 3,000.
“We have all carried the burdens as graciously as possible, and throughout the organization we all have made our sacrifices,” Scott said. “I will always be a proud Fresnan.”
How They Compare
City of Fresno Population: 501,362
Size: 112.3 square miles
Budget 2012-13: $950 million
Number of city employees: 3,000
Unemployment rate: 14 percent
Major employers: Fresno Unified School District (7,418 employees), Fresno County (7,050), Fresno (3,700), Community Medical Centers (4,592), Saint Agnes Medical Center (2,075)
City manager salary: $186,994.02 (2012 salary)
City of Burbank Population: 104,092
Size: 17.38 square miles
Budget 2012-13: $638 million
Number of city employees: 1,500
Unemployment rate: 8 percent
Major employers: The Walt Disney Co. (9,466 employees), Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. (8,000), NBC/Universal (2,045), Burbank Unified School District (2,010), Yahoo! (1,800)
City manager salary: Base ranges from $167,928 to $220,824 annually
