Assistant City Manager Dupuis is lobbying strongly to be appointed our next City Manager (CM). This would be a grave error in my opinion and would not serve Laguna Beach residents well. On top of her light experience in anything but transportation, I have heard of unhappiness with her management style. A confidential employee satisfaction survey from a third party is vital to gauge the current culture at City Hall, identify issues and assist the next CM on areas upon which to improve. Obviously these findings should be reported directly to City Council in an open meeting. Additionally, Dupuis is not a person who is mindful of the budget in my opinion (Bluebird Park slide comes instantly to mind), seemingly farms everything out to consultants and comes unprepared to council meetings. A prime example was the rebuilding of Main Beach and she could not answer questions. She said she would come back with answers at the next meeting and she didn’t.
My biggest concern with the selection of the next City Manager is that there has been an assumption that the current ACM is the most qualified for this job. It was stated when Dupuis received her $25,000 raise that she was in consideration to become the next City Manager so I believe there has been a bias from the start. I don’t think that narrow focus is good for Laguna Beach. We are a world-class destination with myriad complex issues. I think that a national search will yield someone of top quality and deep experience to guide us into the next decades. I would suggest that a Master’s degree, at least five years supervisory experience at a similar level and a strong background in finance is needed. The city should easily be able to find qualified candidates at the City Manager level rather than at the Assistant City Manager level. We offer top pay, excellent benefits and pension with every other Friday off and we are Laguna Beach. I would think that qualified candidates will be responding in droves for this job.
We deserve to have the very best that’s out there and in my opinion to select Dupuis with primarily transportation experience when we have so many other issues (sewer, downtown, tourists) would be a grave disservice to the residents of Laguna Beach. We have selected outside the city for the Police Chief, Community Development Director and Fire Chief. Why wouldn’t we do the same for the most important city position? Ken Frank hand-picked Pietig. Pietig is picking Dupuis. Haven’t we had enough of this regime? It’s time for some new blood and new ideas.
Michèle Monda, Laguna Beach
Thank you for addressing concerns about open recruitment and employee information gathering. Re: “A confidential employee satisfaction survey from a third party is vital to gauge the current culture at City Hall, identify issues and assist the next CM on areas upon which to improve. Obviously these findings should be reported directly to City Council in an open meeting.”
Fact is, the City Council has been asked multiple times since the announcement of John Pietig’s retirement to have an outside survey firm conduct a employee satisfaction survey (confidential information with results submitted to CC members) but they appear to be ignoring constituents requests. This could easily be done in conjunction with the city manager recruitment process currently underway. We are a small city and these professional employee surveys are standard, easily implemented and very informative for city leaders.
Please join me in asking our City Council to conduct this important internal survey. Our city employees deserve to be heard and their work environment and management concerns recognized and addressed. If our City Council doesn’t care, who will? Our employee turnover is substantial. We need to know why city employees leave us. Period. Professional’s should be thrilled to be a part of Laguna Beach!