Jerry Roberts
By Jerry Roberts of Newsmakers
Not since Hercules hit the Augean stables has one man faced such a catastrophic clean-up job as City Administrator Paul Casey, who’s confronting massive wreckage the pandemic has inflicted on Santa Barbara’s economy and City Hall’s budget.
“This is gonna be brutal,” Casey tells Newsmakers. “I don’t want to give any false hope that the community not’s going to feel this…in service reductions.”
In a one-on-one interview, the city’s veteran chief executive afforded a substantive and detailed outline of the enormous challenges wrought by the most severe public health crisis since the 1950s polio epidemic and the economic collapse it has triggered, the deepest at least since the Great Recession. He also described the status of City Hall efforts to respond to a looming $30 million budget gap, and talked about ongoing negotiations over “concessions” by public employee unions.
Casey stressed that he has his head down working on the immediate crisis, and said that plans for sweeping, long-range strategies that re-envision the future economy of Santa Barbara will have to wait, even as calls grow louder in the media and in pockets of the community for a far-reaching and visionary approach to the recovery.
“I haven’t thought a lot about five years from now, because I am managing in the moment and trying to understand where we’re going to be six months from now,” he said. “We’ve got this huge crisis. We’ve got to focus on the near-term first just to get people back on their feet and then talk about longer term visions.”
Amid the crisis, however, Casey also said that he remains focused on streamlining and improving operations of the embattled Community Development Department, a target of developers and elements of the business community unhappy with its slow and exasperating operations on planning, permitting and building issues. He said he has made clear to department Director George Buell the urgency of the problem.
Casey said he has heard the vocal criticism from some individuals and factions of the business community who are openly campaigning for him to be canned, in part because of the problems with Community Development, and who blame him for ineffective, pre-pandemic efforts by the city to mount an aggressive economic development effort to revitalize State Street, build more housing and invigorate downtown business.
“I’ve got a lot of targets on my back and arrows coming my way,” Casey acknowledged.
“City managers and city administrators are often in the line of fire in lots of communities and you’re seeing it more so now up and down the state,” he added. “I hear the criticism. I get it. But I wake up everyday and I give 110 percent to the community.”.
Watch our full interview with Paul Casey by clicking below. The podcast version is here.
Going to be a lot of new Covid cases from the Huntington Beach rally. No social distancing or masks. The organizer is a right wing evangelical but who sells phony health cures. My, the conservative party will never be the same
I’ve worked with Paul Casey a number of times over the years and he has always been absolutely first rate.
What is an eye-opener is that a few years back, the County Grand Jury took a look at Community Development Department and found many “issues” to make comments on, including employee performance, Department goals, and “loss of records”. And guess who was running that Department then. Yes, Mr. Paul Casey. Little birdies have been heard to be chirping about current questions of actions within the Community Development Department, which is still overseen by the same person, that being Casey. Kind of makes you wonder.
also Eye-Opening: the view counts on this guy’s channel.
True, on Casey’s watch, but, to be fair (and shouldn’t we be?) he follows in the steps of the prior city manager, Jim Armstrong who, for example, when the harbor commission voted to look into having private landscaping for the minimal landscaping around the harbor, rather than paying the much more expensive General Fund Parks personnel, angrily said, no way: Santa Barbara employees are a family and we need to be good to them. The council agreed with him, that when it came to a choice between a benefit to the residents or a benefit to the city staff, he chose the staff. Small example, where only coumcilmember Dale Francisco stood out. Happily, the golf course, with a similar issue re the groundskeepers, went in the direction of fiscal responsibility rather than union mandates. The council is Casey’s boss and he does their bidding — if they don’t bid, then he follows his own well-honed instincts, but it is they who steer and he who keeps the ship moving. Unfortunately, we have a council chosen by the DCC and that’s both very new and fragmented into districts, with some of the members focussed primarily on their districts. Power likes a vacuum and fills it.
Some of you armchair bloviators need to do a better job of researching the pst three decades of city finances, councils and management. You might then gain some perspective and tone down your faux outrage and attempted character assassination. There could not be a more idiotic idea in the middle of a pandemic-induced recession than to dump the experienced City Manager for a shiny new object
boy you sure woke up early in the morning to get that one off yer chest eh? Someone like you surely would go after the most weak and throwaway comment i’ve made and try to build an argument out of that.. and you think yer comin’ off as smart?
@XANTUS You have no idea who Jerry Roberts is do you?
As with many of your posts, there are no facts or active intelligence accompanying your outspew.
The idea that we should not change a leader who has experience might well be argued on behalf of the bloviator himself–Donald Trump. Despite three years of ‘experience’ this man must be removed from office if we are to save our republic.
I’d think twice before showing him the door. We’re lucky to have him taking on this challenge. Nobody could walk in right now and figure this out. Criticism is easy. Spend your brain on constructive solutions if you’re so smart. There will be plenty of time for change once we dig ourselves out of this hole.
This fluff peace doesn’t mention that his salary of $379k per year is grossly excessive. That would explain the “target”.
He should be fired immediately. Our city, which had the good fortune to be on the receiving end of the best 10 years of economic growth in modern history, yet failed to save, to plan or to prepare for a downturn. Instead, they spent like drunken sailors adding 10’s of millions to our city’s already high debt. They cut services while increasing fees everywhere they could. They furloughed workers without giving them a pay cut. They increased taxes and fees, added new bonds and pushed for continued spending. They hired consultants to tell them how to do their jobs, they lost many expensive lawsuits and have put our city on the edge of insolvency – even without Covid-19. This was all on Casey’s watch. He failed in his fiduciary duty to care for the health and well being of the city’s finances. For its future. Instead, he bowed on his knees to his bosses and gave them everything they wanted. Now we are faced with what will essentially be a SB city depression and we have the worst mayor in our history and this political hack to “steer” us through? Forget it Paul. You are a disgrace and your legacy will be economic disaster. You’d be best served to resign and move.
I think every employee of the City of Santa Barbara should be given a choice, through all the unions , of course. Take a 30% cut in salaries, benefits, and pensions for three years, no overtime, no special allowances, no “extras” that are allowed now, no raises, all for a minimum of three years. Same cut for all administrative “desk jockeys”. Moratorium on all hiring. If an employee cannot live on that, perhaps he/she can look to the private sector, the real world, to see the opportunities out there.
Have you noticed all of the new City vehicles around town. Every employee seems to have a pickup or SUV. There are even vehicles for employees to use during lunch if he/she rides a bike to work. Way too many vehicles for a City this size. And we need to support local industry by putting City services and repair work out for bid, instead of supporting the ballooning of union membership and pension funds. With CALPERS, we citizens get to pay twice.
poor analogy since trump was the most INexperienced person ever elected to presidency;
He has always been extremely responsive when I have contacted him about neighborhood issues. As was Armstrong. If he is doing a good job in that, maybe he is doing a good job in other areas too.