First 100 Days: Progress Report

Staffing:
• Hiring of a new interim City Manager, Ron Bernal, Jr. on January 17th
• A new Finance Director, Angeline Loeffler, started on February 13th
• A new Office Assistant/Code Officer, Patrick Nemah, started on March 13th.

We held a closed session for permanent City Manager interviews on March 11th with a follow up meeting of finalists scheduled for March 21st. We hope to have a new City Manager on board by April.

Budget & Audit Committee: (January, February)
January review of the City’s Audited Financial Report see page 187 and Proposed Update to Master Fee Schedule page 205. This additional expense by GovInvest was passed by all Council members at our December 20, 2022 meeting. See item from Consent Calendar here.
February: midyear review of budget, review and recommendations for an improved invest policy and overview of ARPA spending 2021 and 2022. See agenda here.

Energy Services & Infrastructure Renewal Committee: The Council is getting ready to review the findings from a Climatec/Phase I assessment of the City’s infrastructure and potential energy savings measures including water and electrical usage, status of existing building structure and equipment needs. Climatec will be presenting their findings to the Council on April 4th and so be sure to tune in. See Climatec agreement from October 2022 meeting (item 9) here.

Meeting with PG&E:
Interim City Manager Ron Bernal, Mayor Jeff Wan and myself held a first ever meeting with our representatives from PG&E to identify cost savings, infrastructure improvements, rebates, roles and responsibilities and alignment with our potential agreement with Climatec. This meeting was extremely productive and I am delighted and encouraged that we now know who are PG&E representatives are and we have a path forward increased efficiencies and savings to the City.

January Highlights:
• Housing Element Workshop (Jan 10th)
• Approval of the Sixth Housing Element (Jan 17th)
• Approval of support for Our Neighborhood Voices.

February Highlights:
• Endeavor Hall non-profit rate discussion
• Continuance of hybrid meetings
• Promoting one police officer to the position of sergeant, resulting in the promotion of Sgt. Torrey Jarvis

March Highlights:
We voted to terminate the existing 15-year agreement between the City and the CBCA (Clayton Business & Community Association) in order to renegotiate better terms for cost capturing for the City. While this was a tough decision for me personally, as a member and volunteer with CBCA, as is my husband, my first responsibility is to the City of Clayton and its residents and to make sure that the City is being adequately compensated for its costs from each CBCA-sponsored event. I am hopeful that the City and CBCA will be able to sit down and carve out a new agreement that is fair for everyone, particularly for the residents (taxpayers) of this community.

Goal Setting Session: Part I was held on March 13th and as part of this session we received an Organizational Assessment presentation by MRG (Municipal Resource Group) on March 13th with their recommendations for future staffing which can be found here on page 54. We also heard from each of our department heads about their needs and their requests for resources. For a more in depth outline of results of the meeting, see Mayor Wan’s summary here.

Part II will be later this month or early in April. We must address these issues now and not let another year or two go by without decisive action including providing the City staff with the resources they need to be successful in supporting the residents of this community.