New City Manager Pat West answers six of our half-dozen questions

PAT WEST by LUKE MCGARRY

Patrick West officially begins his tenure as Long Beach city manager—a position sometimes called “the city’s CEO”—on Monday. He hasn’t signaled any major changes in the way the city does business, but the very act of his appointment last month by the City Council amounted to one.

Long Beach city government is traditionally loyal to its unofficial chain of command. Only once in the last 57 years has Long Beach not chosen a city manager who came up through City Hall. Recently, the position has been almost royally inherited, typically through a process in which the resigning city manager appoints his second-in-command as acting city manager during the city council’s search process. The city council then hires a headhunting firm to identify outside candidates, the council meticulously interviews them . . . and then gives the job to the acting city manager.

Under that scenario, Christine Shippey would be starting work in the top job Monday. She was outgoing City Manager Jerry Miller’s top assistant, and Miller recommended that she serve as acting city manager during the council’s search process.

But Mayor Bob Foster, flexing some of his position’s new power, pressured the City Council to appoint an interim city manager—despite the fact the City Charter doesn’t give the council that power—and force Shippey to apply for the position like everybody else.

That cleared the way for a debate between two schools of thought. One valued institutional knowledge and continuity. The other believed that Long Beach needed an outsider’s perspective and a transfusion of new blood.

West’s appointment represents a compromise. Although he is best known for the quarter-century he worked for the City of Paramount—especially the 11 years he spent as its city manager—West has been intimately involved in community development and redevelopment since he came to Long Beach two years ago.

He’s an insider’s outsider. Or an outsider’s insider. Either way, we asked him a half dozen questions on the eve of taking office. He answered.

How important is the perspective of an insider or outsider to this job?

It’s incredibly important to have an outsider’s perspective. Long Beach is a little insulated. When I was working on the other side of the 91 Freeway, I was a member—along with 27 other cities—of the Gateway Cities City Managers Group, where we would get together to share, discuss and work toward improving various issues. But we’d never see Long Beach there. For those on the other side of the 91, Long Beach has been a little bit of an enigma. Having worked here awhile, I can better understand why: we are so busy, busy, busy that it can be hard to get out. But it is important that we do. The further you go away from our downtown—a municipal miracle that nobody else in the region has—and get up by the 405 and 91 Freeways, Long Beach shares a lot of the same issues with all the cities in the region. If we learn about their solutions, we won’t have to reinvent the wheel every time we have a problem.

Although the city manager’s job is to facilitate the will of the City Council, it seems there is often a disconnect between the elected officials, who come and go on the whim of the people, and the career staff that has a long institutional memory, strong relationships and an established way of doing things. Now the mayor has increased power, too. Do you have any plans for improving the cohesiveness of Long Beach city government?

Does it need more cohesiveness? I’m not sure. I’m a firm believer in the city manager/city council form of government, which is basic democracy. The council is elected by the people and has its feet on the street. And we are here to implement, through them, the will of the people. My experience is that the council always wants to do the right thing. We may fight about particular little issues—whether or not to fund a snow day or an Easter egg hunt—but on almost all the major issues I think our system works very well.

What do you consider Long Beach’s strengths and weaknesses?

Long Beach’s biggest strengths are its size, composition and location. It’s an urban oasis—a city of a half-million diverse people located on the coast between Orange County and downtown Los Angeles. It’s got miles of beaches, but it’s also got a livable downtown, allowing people to experience a little more gritty life and go to work in Irvine. It’s also got great single-family neighborhoods, one of the nation’s best parks systems, an airport and its own health department. Its weakness is just dealing with the big city woes of paying for the things that are necessary, such as its aging infrastructure.

Speaking of Long Beach’s economics, what is your view on offering tax incentives to attract businesses to the city?

I’m in favor of that where it makes sense. If it means getting a business opportunity that the community and the city are really excited about and want, sometimes it’s necessary. I’m in favor of utilizing whatever tools are available to achieve improvement.

What’s your view on the use of Redevelopment Agency resources to cover City Hall budget deficits?

I’m against that because Redevelopment Agency money can’t be used for those things. That said, however, the Redevelopment Agency is part of the city and those monies can be used in the redevelopment community. Those dollars have historically been utilized to correct blighted situations and infrastructure. A business may be able to come to town, pay its fees, rent its building, pay its utilities—but it’s hard for that building to upgrade a water line, the sewer line, the sidewalk. That’s a deal-killer for lots of businesses. And redevelopment funds can be used to help there.

During recent discussion over the Long Beach budget the City Council considered restricting the amount of money the city manager can spend on an item without council approval—from $100,000 to $50,000. The proposed restriction was defeated. But how do you feel about the issue?

Obviously, reducing the figure to $50,000 would create more of a speed bump in terms of doing business. That said, I can see the City Council’s interest in wanting to know more about expenditures. The council is held accountable for what we do. What I want to do is share that information with them right away, on whatever basis they want to see it, any time.

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