It’s okay if you’ve been sitting around wondering whatever happened to Long Beach’s former city manager Henry Taboada, whom we’re pretty sure immediately preceded Jerry Miller–who in turn preceded our current City Manager Pat West.

And now there’s an answer.

Taboada, our former public servant, turns up today in Rossmoor, in Press-Telegram reporter John Canalis’s story on the Orange County Board of Supervisors asking Rossmoor if it wants to be a city (or a firetruck)–because they’re tired of it costing them money as an unincorporated area of Orange County.

New braces, new glasses, trips to summer camp– I guess raising Rossmoor is expensive.

Specifically, Canalis writes, the Orange County Board of Supervisors is expected to vote tomorrow to put a measure on the Nov. 4 ballot asking this unincorporated area if it wants to become a city. That would make Rossmoor its own responsibility.

“The problem is somebody’s been subsidizing them, and they’ve been saying, `We enjoy this entitlement, why give it up?’ ” Orange County Supervisor John Moorlach told Canalis. “If you’re going to be subsidized, I am not doing my fiduciary duty for the other taxpayers in the county.”

Residents, of course, see the other side.

“They’ve been making money off us for a long time,” longtime Rossmoor resident Jim Alexander told Canalis. “Until the [Orange County] bankruptcy came around, they were reaping about a $500,000 benefit off of our taxpayers. Now they’re saying, `It’s costing us money to do things for you.’ “

And Taboada? Turns out that after leaving Long Beach, he served as interim city manager in Los Alamitos before landing in Rossmoor, where according to Canalis he is Rossmoor Community Services District’s general manager. In some ways, it doesn’t sound too far from his old job here in Long Beach.

Here’s an interesting quote to that effect, from Canalis’s story.

“There is certainly a mandate from the county to get itself out of municipal services,” said Taboada, who runs Rossmoor as an independent contractor [my italics].

Really? Our former city manager now runs Rossmoor as an independent contractor? Wait, it gets better.

If Rossmoor votes to incorporate as a city, “The new City Council ‘would determine who would be their city manager, and could be their interim city manager,’ ” Taboada told Canalis.

“Taboada, 68, said he could stay on an interim basis through about July 1, if necessary.

“Under the conditions of Taboada’s pension from the city of Long Beach, he cannot take a full-time job and work more than six months in a year, so he would prefer to retire.

“That is not to say he hasn’t enjoyed his second act running small communities.

” ‘When you work in a city like Long Beach, it is so large you don’t get to roll up your sleeves a lot,’ he said. ‘Here, it’s hands-on. You get to … do a bit of everything.’ ”

Huh. How did we like having him run Long Beach, anyway? I seem to remember it didn’t go over too well.

Tags: California, City Manager Pat West, former city manager Gerry Miller, former city manager Henry Taboada, Gerry Miller, Henry Taboada, Jim Alexander, John Moorlach, Long Beach, los alamitos, Nov. 4 ballot, Orange County Board of Supervisors, Orange County Supervisor John Moorlach, Rossmoor, Rossmoor Community Services District, Southern California, The District Weekly, Theo Douglas, unincorporated Orange County