Santa Monica’s city manager has resigned, several days after offering to reduce his salary by 20% as the city faces a projected $300 million budget gap over the next 26 months due to the loss of sales, hotel and parking tax revenue amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Mayor Kevin McKeown told the Santa Monica Daily Press that the City Council has called a special meeting to appoint an interim city manager to replace Rick Cole, who has held the post since 2015 and draws an annual salary of $343,000.
The Daily Press reported that as of Friday afternoon, more than 2,800 people had signed a petition calling for Cole and Chief Operating Officer Katie Lichtig to be fired, citing the proposed elimination of the Office of Sustainability and the Environment, closure of the Santa Monica Swim Center and elimination or reduction of several youth programs
In his resignation letter posted to the city’s blog, Cole said the COVID-19 pandemic “has forced us to consider dire and immediate budget reductions. That prospect has spawned understandable fear and anger among our workforce and in the community.”
“Never one to turn my back on a challenge, I was prepared to persevere in the face of this daunting battle and lead our organization through this crisis. On reflection, however, there comes a time to recognize one’s limits,” he wrote.
“The push to put in place a plan to pay down our massive pension obligations had already imposed unpopular fiscal constraints. The protracted struggle over pension reform has eroded the good will I previously enjoyed with our unions. The crushing demands of serving as Emergency Service Director over the past five weeks has put me squarely in the line of fire for anyone dissatisfied with any aspect of the city’s response to the emergency.
“Most importantly, the need to deal with a projected $300 million dollar shortfall over the next 26 months puts us all in a nearly impossible situation. It almost certainly will result in personnel reductions that will be devastating to the livelihoods of colleagues I’ve been proud to lead — and devastating to community services I’ve been committed to enhancing.”
The Daily Press reported that the City Council on Tuesday approved a plan to offer city staff $10,000 or $15,000 to voluntarily leave their jobs, and is scheduled to discuss workforce and service reductions on May 5.
Cole said the council “will need to make reductions in staff at every level of the organization — literally from the top to the bottom (or as I have always preferred to think of it, from the spoke of the wheel all the way outward to where the rubber meets the road).”
“I can only imagine how painful it is for him (Cole) now to demonstrate, through his own action, how the coronavirus pandemic and resultant economic collapse have made agonizing sacrifices inevitable, right up to the top office in City Hall,” the mayor told the Daily Press.