Council Reveals Rare Dissent in Vote on Interim City Manager
Council voted 5-2 to appoint Mike Malone as Interim City Manager on Tuesday evening.
The public vote was exceptional in that almost exclusively, city council shows a united front of agreement about personnel decisions that it makes in closed session.
Mayor Robert McConnell once told me that they battle things out and disagree about people all the time, but present a “united front” when discussing employees in front of the community. Our discussion came up last year after the Council as an entire body expressed full confidence in Greg Nyhoff after his fitness for duty as City Manager was raised. My impression from that discussion was that not everyone actually did have full confidence in Nyhoff, but that since he was a city employee and the council was his boss, they would publicly state unanimous support of the embattled CM.
Mayor McConnell said he had worked with Malone closely on the Water Board and found him to be “analytical, calm, fair, and understanding of the subject matter.” He also confronted Malone’s past as being part of a sexual harassment retaliation lawsuit in Sacramento, which was settled. McConnell said they have “investigated that background” and there is “nothing there to preclude him from doing his duties” and that he expects him to “perform admirably.”
Councilmember Mina Loera-Diaz said that Malone was doing a “great job” as director of the water department. But “given the fact that we have had a lot of issues in this community,” she would like to see someone from the outside come in as interim CM with a different perspective. She voted “no” on appointing him, along with Councilmember Tina Arriola.
