Laguna Beach named a former Fullerton city manager as its new assistant city manager late Thursday.
Ken Domer brings with him over 30 years of experience in municipal government, including about 15 years in city management roles. He held the top job at Fullerton City Hall from 2017 until April when the City Council terminated him without explanation.
“I look forward to serving the residents and visitors of the City of Laguna Beach as Assistant City Manager and I am particularly excited to work together with such a capable City team,” Domer said in a press release. “It will be our collective efforts that will allow us to achieve the goals set forth by the City Council. The chance to serve such a beautiful community in a place my family has enjoyed visiting for years makes me especially grateful to have been chosen for this role.”
Domer arrives in Laguna Beach as it attempts to recover from an economic downturn induced by COVID-19, solve perennial complaints about traffic and parking, streamline its design review process, and confront the hazards of severe wildfire conditions.
Laguna Beach will pay Domer a $210,000 salary for the assistant city manager position, a city spokesperson wrote in an email Monday.
A life-long Orange County resident, Domer also previously served as the assistant city manager of Huntington Beach, Villa Park city manager, and assistant city administrator for Placentia.
“Ken’s extensive experience providing day-to-day leadership of City operations of full-service cities along with his ability and experience in addressing challenges of coastal communities set him apart from other candidates,” City Manager Shohreh Dupuis said in a press release.
Dupuis added that Domer will play a key role in helping Laguna Beach enhancing the delivery of city services, leverage technology to modernize processes, and make city operations more efficient.
Laguna Beach recruited Domer from a pool of 10 applicants following a “comprehensive review process” and will start in his new role on June 28, according to a press release.
Domer has three daughters and lives with his wife live in Orange.
One major controversy that has followed Domer to Laguna Beach is a 2019 lawsuit filed by Fullerton that attempted to claw back records mistakenly released to a local blog, Friends of Fullerton’s Future. The trial court judge enjoined the bloggers from publishing the documents but the appellate court immediately blocked the injunction, according to court records.
The case attracted briefs from the American Civil Liberties Union and other national foundations advocating for access to public records. The parties agreed to settle the case in May.
“Based on the City’s additional investigation and through discussions with Mr. Ferguson and Mr. Curlee, the City now understands that documents were not stolen or illegally taken from the shared file account as the City previously believed and asserted,” according to the settlement agreement.
30 years in gov..sorry that means gaming the system and knowing how to make us pay…we are so lost..this is the best we can do, considering the current non experienced City manager and now this…ugh
Good luck residents of Laguna Beach… this guy runs his own show the way HE wants to. Watch carefully who he becomes friends with in city hall and which council members he aligns himself with. This will tell you which direction your city will be run.
Take it from a Fullertonian who helped show Mr. Domer the door at Fullerton City Hall.
Good Riddance!!!
Ken comes off as a nice guy, but his arrogance gets him into trouble time and time again.
He got fired in Fullerton for a combination of insubordination and spearheading a lawsuit against a local blog. The blog published confidential documents uploaded to Dropbox in error by incompetent City of Fullerton employees. Instead of acknowledging his employees made a mistake, he took the most drastic option and had the city’s legal firm sue the blog. I would know – I’m one of the defendants.
In the end, this embarrassment cost Fullerton $1 million dollars. $750,000 was spent on legal fees alone. The case was so egregious that the ACLU and Electronic Frontier Foundation defended us for free.
Head on over to http://www.fullertonsfuture.org if you want to learn more about Ken.
CM Dupuis owes residents an explanation as to why she selected this controversial candidate from a pool of candidates as stated here. “Laguna Beach recruited Domer from a pool of applicants following a “comprehensive review process.” Laguna Beach, don’t we have enough issues with her biased appointment, the abrupt loss of a stellar Police Chief, a new police harassment claim naming our ex-CM and Police Chief, and a city in turmoil over our spending and latest explosion of people corals downtown as well as continuing city employee morale concerns and a city council who ignores its residents needs and opinions and one who is a self-proclaimed bully? What is happening to our once beautiful and peaceful coastal city? This is really concerning. I also find the comment by the Fullerton resident above about watching who this new employee will align himself with on our Council interesting. Thanks for the tip. Based upon the aggressive sounding actions he supposedly took in Fullerton – guesses anyone? Please contact the CM and CC and ask for a formal explanation on this hire and which council members actually interviewed, vetted and selected him. We are entitled to know.
Domer was fired by the Fullerton City Council. He was instrumental in trying to blame mismanagement, malfeasance and cyber security failure on a local blog versus taking accountability for the failure. He then wasted over $1M on a frivolous lawsuit which the City lost. This is *typical* Domer *leadership*. Laguna Beach hired one of the worst possible candidates. You should challenge your City Council and their decision and save your city from the pain and waste Domer will inflict on it before it’s too late.
“leverage technology to modernize processes”
You hired someone who mismanaged Fullerton and was responsible for one of the worst and totally avoidable cyber-security failures in municipal history to “leverage technology to modernize processes”? Good luck with that. The blind leading the blind for sure.
Mr. Jones, I inquired with our City Manager and City Council about the issues you address here and the interview participation and process. I was disappointed to hear from our CM that the Council representative selected to serve on this panel is our most unqualified and problematic member who is a self-proclaimed bully. In addition, the president of Visit Laguna Beach, a tourist driven marketing organization served and an official from Newport Beach. Not sure why we didn’t select a business professional or former city leader from our own city or one respected resident stakeholder to participate. Baffling and concerning. That said, Mr. Domer did reach out to me and I hope to get answers to my questions from him when the opportunity presents itself. He appears to be open to this so I definitely intend to give him an chance to offer explanations. Thanks for your input. FYI- I have a blog focused on city transparency and accountability. Lagunabeachchat.com
Who was the Domer selection committee?? It was CC Peter Blake, Ashley Johnson of our tourist bureau and City Manager from Newport Beach. Seriously? The “first time voting/attending CC meetings when he ran” Peter Blake, the censured Peter Blake, is judging who would be a good government employee to manage others? Ashley Johnson – what city government experience does she have? Has she ever hired a govt. employee before, especially for the second most important job in a town? Her tourist bureau gets money from the bed tax which is administered by the city. Conflict of interest anyone? And the City Manager from Newport Beach – what on earth interest is it of hers who is LB ACM? She may have the experience to ask the questions but she doesn’t know the town, the players or the situations this new ACM will be dealing with. CM Dupuis really set us up with this committee of people who had no idea what they were doing. What a bad way to start off as City Manager imo.