Laguna Beach Gives City Manager Home Loan to Keep Him in Town

Laguna Beach’s recently hired metropolis manager was welcomed into the metropolis done a taxpayer-funded $1.5 cardinal indebtedness to assistance him acquisition a location successful town.

Officials accidental it’s a indispensable determination to marque definite the metropolis manager is readily disposable successful lawsuit of emergencies. 

Councilmember George Weiss said the lodging indebtedness isn’t thing the metropolis should bash each the time, but helium felt it was justified successful this case.

“He recovered a location that helium wanted to unrecorded in, and it was a payment to person him close successful town,” Weiss said successful a telephone interview.

“I wouldn’t person done it for conscionable anyone, but I worth his acquisition and work arsenic a metropolis manager for the metropolis of Newport Beach,” helium said. “He was highly regarded there, and that’s wherefore we did it.”

None of the different metropolis assembly members responded to requests for remark successful this story.

Dave Kiff, who antecedently served arsenic metropolis manager successful Newport Beach and interim metropolis manager successful Huntington Beach, was appointed successful April. 

The assembly approved the indebtedness successful an August assembly meeting, replacing a $1,000 monthly lodging stipend for the metropolis manager with the indebtedness agreement.

“The City of Laguna Beach has successful the past provided lodging assistance to the metropolis manager — either successful the signifier of a loan, oregon co-ownership of a home, oregon adjacent both,” Kiff wrote successful an email.

“Doing truthful helps guarantee that the City Manager is adjacent by should an exigency hap — successful a determination prone to emergencies (floods, fires, and earthquakes), and successful a municipality that has lone constricted ways successful and retired (PCH and Laguna Canyon Road).”

Kiff emphasized that Laguna Beach isn’t the lone 1 handling these kinds of loans.

In 2019, Huntington Beach officials approved a $1.5 cardinal lodging indebtedness for then-City Manager Oliver Chi. Kiff was the interim metropolis manager astatine the time.

“There are respective high-housing outgo communities successful California that connection lodging assistance (including loans) to metropolis managers arsenic an employment benefit,” Kiff said.

Kiff, who antecedently lived successful Laguna Beach for years, is required to wage backmost the indebtedness oregon enactment the spot up for merchantability wrong a twelvemonth of leaving his presumption successful the city. His declaration includes an yearly basal wage of $315,000.

“I cognize that during the City Manager recruitment process, aggregate imaginable candidates shared with the City that the precocious outgo of lodging is simply a obstruction to attracting candidates for the City Manager relation here,” Kiff said, “which is wherefore the job flyer referred to a imaginable for lodging assistance arsenic a benefit.”

The metropolis utilized to person an essential worker lodging assistance program that provided loans oregon co-ownership for definite metropolis employees.

The programme was progressive for astir 20 years until the metropolis assembly voted unanimously to discontinue the programme successful 2017.

That erstwhile programme wasn’t conscionable for the metropolis manager. 

From 2000 until 2017, the metropolis handed retired six lodging assistance agreements for occurrence chiefs, h2o prime supervisors and adjunct metropolis managers, including Shohreh Dupuis — the arguable metropolis manager who left office past twelvemonth aft leveling hostile workplace allegations against a sitting assembly member.

[Read: Laguna Beach Keeps Hostile Workplace Investigation Secret]

In 2017, assembly members voted to extremity the assistance program, claiming it was nary longer necessary.

This clip around, Weiss said the location indebtedness could besides assistance support Kiff astatine the city’s helm for a while.

“I don’t similar conscionable giving retired escaped stuff,” Weiss said. “In this case, I don’t deliberation we did due to the fact that we’ll payment from him having a location present and hopefully his show volition beryllium specified that helium stays present a agelong clip and turns the metropolis around.”

Angelina Hicks is simply a Voice of OC Tracy Wood Reporting Fellow. Contact her astatine [email protected] oregon connected Twitter @angelinahicks13

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