CityofSantaBarbaraSource: City of Santa Barbara
The City Council appointed Rebecca Bjork as interim City Administrator effective September 11, 2021. Ms. Bjork brings continuity and a deep knowledge of City operations to the day to day management of the City operations.
Even as we say a fond farewell to Paul Casey and thank him for all he has contributed as City Administrator, we are pleased to welcome Rebecca Bjork in the interim position, excited about her experience, management skills, and dedication to the City of Santa Barbara.”
Ms. Bjork has worked with the City of Santa Barbara for more than 32 years most recently serving as the Interim Community Development Director, initiating work with the Council Sub-Committee to simplify the land development process. Ms. Bjork has also been instrumental in the work to address homelessness and homeless encampments during the pandemic.
Ms. Bjork also served as the Public Works Director, overseeing the largest City department for over five years with nearly 300 employees and a budget totaling $138 million. The Public Works Department includes the City’s water and wastewater utilities, transportation planning, downtown parking, street maintenance, capital project design and construction, fleet services, and maintenance of over 100 City buildings and facilities. She directed staff and guided the City’s response during the most recent multi-year drought. From 2007 to 2014, she served as Water Resources Manager with responsibility for water and wastewater utilities, which included the operation and maintenance of the Cater Water Treatment Plant and the El Estero Wastewater Treatment Plant. She oversaw the introduction of ozonation at the Water Treatment Plant to improve the quality and taste of drinking water. Throughout her tenure, she has been instrumental in various renewal and replacement projects for water and wastewater mains, street infrastructure, and major facilities to extend the life of the City’s essential infrastructure.
“I am honored to be asked to take on this very important role while the Council searches for the next City Administrator. I will work with our excellent executive team to continue to make improvements to City operations and services.”
The City Council will conduct an executive search and recruitment for the next City Administrator, a process anticipated to take approximately six months.
Anyone else notice the two city press releases about this appointment – first one the other day was obviously a draft copy that got mistakenly released that included an italics request for the mayor to say something, and then proceeding to state what the press release writer thought the mayor should say to then be included in the final press release. But someone obviously pushed the send key on what was a draft copy. Then the one today labeled “Revised” that did not include draft copy gaffe in italics, but still with no quote from the mayor. Shelly, what sort of shell game is coming out of your media offices? Bjork has her work cut out for herself, if this is how her announcement is sent out by the under new management city administrative staff.
Lol, how could it possibly be her fault that the design drawings were lost before she was involved? They were from decades ago.
This was obviously the plan. She has the ear of the insiders in the city. She is a great politician but a terrible manager. The whole desalination experience was a bungle, the budget was about twice what we were told it would be and she ignored alternatives that were cheaper and environmentally superior. She also ignored, for years, the need to replace city main water lines until the persistence of these failures forced some action. But we lost a huge amount of water when these liners were rupturing almost monthly. And the constant redesign of city intersections, bulb outs, bicycle accommodation was a reliable waste of funds. What has she done in her work in Public Works that gives us confidence that she manage the city–except she apparently is “well liked.”
So for dozens of people working on the project, it was up to her and her alone to verify every part of the project before putting it out to bid? Doubt it.
Hope she runs a tight ship, like the Harriet Miller- Admin Lizzaraga days. First task is to review the administrative charts for all cities with a 90,000 population. How do they compare to Santa Barbara’s administrative charts – how do the city missions compare. Where can downsizing staff and upgrading infrastructure repair and maintenance be achieved, so the city can stop raising taxes. What services can be consolidated with the county, so we are not paying for duplicate services due to personnel turf wars. How can we consolidate our fire services into a single area wide agency since they respond cooperatively anyway – and cut down the huge administrative expenses running multiple small local fire agencies. Fire services are probably the largest expense, even more than law enforcement – check it out. Any way to multi-task fire personnel, so their down time is not just standby idle time? Can they also be tasked as a 24/7 graffiti clean up team, so while on duty they are also out surveying potential fire hazards spots, that have plagued us these past few years? There presence cleaning up fire hazards in the vagrants camps preventively would be very welcome. Rethink fire services too along with rethinking police services.
OMG. This woman has been rewarded beyond her wildest dreams. I remember back when she was in charge of the desal renovation project and it went from $55M to$72M, $17,000,000 over budget. Because they said they “lost” the design drawings and the contractor didn’t really know where the pipes went and had to do a lot of extra work.
How do you lose the design drawings for the biggest project the City has ever built? No clue.
Even curiouser is that the Indy stories on this don’t show up in Google, there are only a few stories on KEYT and the Journal.
I bet the client service that Armstrong and Casey offered just took a big hit.
The Peter principle at work…
There is ZERO accountability for City Admin Personnel- ZERO. There is no one to call them out on their FAILED job performances… They get FREE reign.