Hires Put a New Face on Government

Blame it on the three Rs.

Retirement, resignation and reorganization, that is.

Be it pressure or coincidence, a rash of departures by top-level bureaucrats in 1997 has led to five new faces heading up some of county government’s cornerstone agencies as the new year begins.

Whether the changes will mean the same old slow, behemoth bureaucracy with a handful of new figureheads--or inroads to the more cost-efficient, citizen-friendly government agency that county politicians have been clamoring for--remains to be seen.

“The heat’s on, I hope,” said Supervisor Frank Schillo, who has been an outspoken critic of the molasses pace of change in the county’s $870-million bureaucracy.

“Some of the people who have left have been there quite a long time and haven’t made the adjustments they should have, and that’s a really important thing to do considering the climate we’re in.”

That climate continues to be a financially chilly one, the result of millions of dollars in lost property tax revenue shifted to solve state government’s budget woes.

But now, those financial strains, along with new reforms in social welfare and other government programs, are becoming the responsibility of a new set of administrators.

“They’re all geared toward being more efficient,” County Administrator Lin Koester said of the new management appointees, “and hopefully that will all come to pass in the coming new year.”

Beginning in January, Koester found himself making an almost monthly announcement that someone was coming or someone was going.

First, the library director retired under heavy political pressure and a temporary successor was named.

Then the fire chief left for Seattle. And the welfare director resigned amid a flood of criticism over his job performance.

The county’s well-respected legislative advisor retired. Ditto for the head of probation.

With the resignation of the personnel director, Koester and the Board of Supervisors agreed to fold the human resources department under the county administrator’s office, a move designed to make county government more manageable.

By year’s end, the longtime manager of the county’s complex computer networks joined the action and announced his retirement.

“I’m certainly sorry to lose a couple of people, but it also affords the opportunity to bring some new ones into the organization,” Koester said.

And so enter Barbara Fitzgerald, the new head of the Public Social Services Agency, new Fire Chief Bob Roper, Probation Director Calvin C. Remington, Personnel Director Barbara Journet and Lawrence E. Siegel, snatched from the private sector to be the county’s new watchdog over state and federal legislation.

Still to come are appointments for the new county library director and computer systems manager.

The searches for a new social services director and fire chief were among the most closely watched in 1997.

County supervisors hadn’t had much luck with fire chiefs, with the recruitment of Roper the fourth such search the board had conducted in a dozen years.

Not surprisingly, the firefighters union was getting antsy, tired of the continued introduction of new chiefs whose new ideas rarely became reality.

In Roper, a 41-year-old Ojai resident and 17-year department veteran, the board found a young, but experienced product of Ventura schools who had risen from the ranks of volunteer.

Perhaps most importantly to his new bosses, the married father of two teenage daughters had no intention of leaving Ventura County.

“Why would anyone want to leave it?” he asked in an interview the day of his nomination.

Roper was named the county’s top firefighter a month after the May resignation of his predecessor, James Sewell, who took over as Seattle’s fire chief.

Supervisors went with a county veteran when choosing a new social services chief, as well. But the decision process proved more protracted and divisive.

In replacing James E. Isom, the leader of the $125-million agency for the previous 22 years, the board’s thinking in part centered on who could best lead the county through complex welfare reform legislation that cuts benefits after 24 months.

Possibly even more visible to the public, however, was rising concern over overburdened caseworkers, and the deaths of two toddlers who had apparently fallen through the cracks of the county’s child protective services system.

After nearly seven months and narrowing the candidate pool to six, a divided Board of Supervisors in November named Fitzgerald to replace Isom, who had resigned in May amid mounting criticism over his inability to resolve some of the agency’s chronic problems.

With Fitzgerald, three supervisors--John K. Flynn, Susan Lacey and Kathy Long--saw an affable accounting whiz and devoted 28-year county employee who knew all the ins and outs of the social welfare system.

But Schillo and Supervisor Judy Mikels were not so impressed, voting against her appointment. To Schillo, Fitzgerald had not instituted enough creative changes in the massive agency since being named interim director following Isom’s departure.

In October, a more agreeable board unanimously appointed Remington to replace the retiring Frank Woodson as head of the county’s Probation Department.

The appointment came at a crucial time for the agency, which was in the midst of launching a boot camp for juvenile offenders and beginning work on an ambitious $4.5-million federal anti-youth violence grant in south Oxnard and Port Hueneme.

1998 promises to usher in even more changes at some of the county’s key management positions.

Supervisors already have begun discussing how best to replace George E. Mathews, director of the county’s Information Systems Department. But replacing him will be no easy task, Koester said.

Recruiting top computer executives is a competitive business, and the county will need someone willing and capable of managing the complexities of the county’s criminal justice, welfare and health-care computer systems.

The board will likely hire a professional headhunting firm to help with the search, Koester said.

Meanwhile, a new oversight panel of city and county representatives will meet for the first time in January to begin managing the county’s library system.

Richard Rowe, a retired Chino city manager, has served as interim library director since Dixie Adeniran’s departure in March.

One of the new panel’s first tasks, officials say, will be to recruit and hire a permanent director to lead what critics have panned as a top-heavy, financially troubled system that for years put more emphasis on paper pushing than books or keeping library doors open.