Eric Levitt Going to a Better Place

Well, maybe not better. But different. He’s bolting for San Bernardino, so it is said, a place never confused by anybody as the Continent of Heaven. Still, it’s bigger than Fullerton so there must be more money in it.

The interesting question is whether or not anybody will really notice. Or care. Levitt opened shop in Fullerton three short years ago to no great cries of acclaim. I never learned who voted for hiring this guy, mostly because I didn’t care too much. Who ever did didn’t do the people of Fullerton any great favor.

San Bernardino is host to a small galaxy of endemic problems and it’s hard to see how the apparently spineless Levitt could accomplish anything given that he never did in Fullerton. Every question directed to Levitt resulted in mush-mouthy responses that inspired confidence in nobody. His worst offence was in permitting two councilmembers to re-agendize something voted down by a council majority – something obviously never intended in whatever policy deals with agenda matters.

There doesn’t seem to be a lot of stick-to-itiveness in garden variety city managers; you know loyalty to your employer, especially when you’ve never accomplished a damn thing. And Levitt came right out of the least prepossessing part of the garden. Oh, well.

But I will say this in poor Eric’s defence, I have never had to deal with an hysterical Ahmad Zahra shrieking orders to me over the phone three or four times a week.

The next question for Fullerton’s divided council is who to appoint as an Interim City Manager. None of the in-house talent looks very, um, well, talented.

Levitt’s interim predecessors were a clueless County retiree and then a retired Whittier city manager. No one may have any appetite for an outsider placeholder, but it remains a good idea, especially with a divisive sales tax increase on the ballot.

The longer term question is who might be hired to be the (semi!)permanent hire. I think Jung and Valencia can be relied on to put some commonsense to the question, but Charles and Zahra can be counted to prioritize put sex, race and liberal government philosophy to the fore.

Whoever takes the prize is going to have to deal with a tsunami of red ink left by years of capitulation to employee unions; and then there’s the roads.