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# Lack of support for city manager search
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/lack-of-support-for-city-manager-search/
- Published: 2005-12-10T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T08:17:04.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Pier, #archive-import

This past week, Q-line asked: “Do you support the City Council’s choice for city manager? Why or why not?”

Here are your responses: ✆ “I do not support the City Council’s choice for City Manager. We got somebody way from San Diego who has a dubious record and we could have used plenty of people from Santa Monica that are very good people and we had to go to San Diego to get a black man. Why didn’t we have a white person? Why did we have to get a black man? I don’t think the city knows what they are doing. If I had my way every city council man except Bobby Shriver would be out on their ass. Also, if we had all City Council people like Bobby Shriver we would have the No. 1 city in the United States. Right now we must be about the 1,000th city in the United States. We have got to do something about the City Council and not wait for the election.” ✆ “I certainly do not support the City Council’s choice for City Manager. Anyone with this sort of suspicious background should never have been considered. With some 60 odd candidates for the office this is the best they could come up with? Unbelievable. Some kind of deal or hanky panky is going on, as is typical of this city administration.” ✆ “Mr. Lamont Ewell will spend most of his tenure in office attempting to understand the uniqueness of the city of Santa Monica. Santa Monica is comprised with the super-rich and the super-poor, every religion and race known to mankind who are awash with every political opinion, then compounded by heavy traffic, parking problems, and congestion. Good luck Lamont.” ✆ “It’s too early to tell but it seems the City Council jumped the gun and did not include the public in the process nor try to make this an open process. And it seems the City Council may have made a bad choice for somebody that going with prolabor who has at least not helped San Diego drive down any financial problems. So, we’ll see.” ✆ “Well, I applaud the city of Santa Monica for the giving the job to a black man because I think it’s about high time and I applaud the City Council. I’m usually not a big supporter of the City Council, with the exception of Bobby Shriver, but I think this time they made the good and wise choice in this gentleman.” ✆ “No, I don’t think the City Council made a very good choice with this new City Manager. I mean it took us awhile to get rid of the last guy that was mixed up in a lot of corruption. The City Council don’t even use their brains when they are doing anything.

Look at the mess they have the city in. Eventually, it will show up and they will have to get rid of him and it’s a lot of money thrown down the drain. The whole place needs a good clean up, it’s starting to stink too much.” ✆ “I think it’s too early to tell about the choice for the new City Manager but it is evident that the City Council, once again, has forgotten that they are elected to represent the citizens of Santa Monica and not just their own interests. Once again, they have forgotten that this needs to be an open process in every respect and that they are to set policy, not micro-manage.” ✆ “Absolutely not. The choice should have been made on a candidate of unquestionable integrity and this is not the case. A person from out of state would have been preferable, one not connected with the California political mob. Santa Monica needs to see the resumes submitted by other candidates and see why they were ignored for this powerful position. All I can say that this is another case of partners in crime.” ✆ “Any city with a competent City Council and a sharp City Hall staff would have thoroughly vetted any candidates for city manager. Certainly to the point where there was no room for suspicion. But our City Council’s foremost concern is that affirmative action be the No. 1 important reason for hiring someone. Mr. Ewell may yet turn out to be a fine candidate for City Manager but his resume is filled with many jobs of short duration. It usually takes two to five years to terminate a substandard managerial person because of negotiated contracts. Former City Manager McCarthy worked her way up through different departments in City Hall. We have someone from outside the city. He of course is the wrong gender but comes in second by being a minority. None of this should even matter except for our City Council’s ongoing quest to flood City Hall with affirmative action hires. Either by gender or racial profiling. If the No. 1 job concern is low income housing, Mr. Ewell will have to grow a thick spine and dealing with all the council’s mistakes: traffic, parking, bums, the pier, the mall, hedges and big brother.” ✆ “There should have been public input. This would have been the perfect time to switch to an elected and accountable mayor, rather than an appointed City Manager. This probably postpones that possibility for another couple of years.”

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 10, 2005.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/121005.pdf?ref=smdp.com)