CityofGoleta
By the City of Goleta
The City of Goleta is pleased to introduce Luz “Nina” Buelna as the City’s new Assistant Public Works Director. Nina brings more than 17 years of public service and infrastructure experience, performing design, construction, project management and maintenance of multiple Public Works and Department of Utilities facilities. She most recently worked for the City of Sacramento in its Department of Utilities.
Goleta Public Works Director Charlie Ebeling said, “We are thrilled to have someone with Nina’s caliber of experience join our team during this pivotal time in the City’s 20 year history. Nina has an extensive background in engineering which she has gained through her work in several municipalities. We look forward to seeing the positive impact she is going to make.”
Ms. Buelna said, “I have always wanted to live in the Goleta area, I grew up coming to this area because my dad was a civil engineer, he was the Chief Operating engineer at Lake Cachuma for 20 years. When this position became available, I knew this was a great city with incredible projects and programs, I wanted to be a part of. I am so excited to help the City of Goleta’s Public Works Department achieve all of its goals and objectives.”
During her time in Sacramento, Ms. Buelna oversaw the City’s Combined Sewer System and Separated Sewer utilities planning and CIP projects as a supervising engineer and was the construction manager for the Department of Utilities as senior engineer. Ms. Buelna also spent more than 13 years as a City of Roseville Department of Public Works civil engineer. She has worked on a number of notable projects, including the Eureka Road and Interstate 80 Improvement, McKinley Water Vault, and Third Street Relief Sewer project. Nina has a degree in Civil Engineering from California State University Sacramento and is a first-generation American.
Ms. Buelna’s first day at the City was on Monday, August 1st. You can connect with her via email at nbuelna@cityofgoleta.org.
To learn more about the City’s Public Works Department and Capital Improvement Program that creates needed infrastructure within our community, please visit: https://www.cityofgoleta.org/city-hall/public-works.
If you are interested in a rewarding career with the City of Goleta, we are always looking for great candidates to #JoinTeamGoleta. Go to https://www.governmentjobs.com/careers/goletaca for a list of job openings.
Why does Goleta need an assistant PW director? Is the PW Director too busy? Perhaps the city should trim back its expenses similar to the rest of us. In addition to the over inflated annual salary & benefits, each one of these superfluous positions costs the city a future fortune in pension liabilities.
Goleta now has 114.775 full-time employees (FTE). There were 46 FTE in 2009 and 88 FTE in 2019.
In June the Goleta City Council voted 4-1 to place a sales tax increase on November’s ballot.
That seems like a lot of employees for a city of 32,000.
Great news! Goleta infrastructure needs all the help it can get. More bike paths, repaved roads, and well kept parks please!
Hiring another administrator isn’t going to help Goleta’s “infrastructure”. Sheios just another long list of adds to tax dole.
Bringing with the position is the $129k salary and $170k total with benefits package from Sacramento. Think the position here pays more? Is it necessary? Are we at a place where adding employees is a good idea? How again are these pensions to be covered? Is it certain there were no local candidates to take the job? Is the salary in line with privately held positions in Goleta? Did the people ask for it? Are those making decisions on planning also the ones tugging the purse strings to pay for this? Is there a conflict of interest here?
As pointed out above, another Sales Tax Increase coming on the ballot – Vote NO!!
Taxes are an investment in society.