Irvine picks John Russo, who was fired from Riverside in April, as new city manager

Irvine has hired John Russo as its city manager, a choice the mayor said the City Council is comfortable with though Russo was fired from his previous job as Riverside’s top administrator.

The Riverside City Council dismissed Russo in April, about two months after council members had chosen to extend his contract to run the city through 2024.

Russo, 59, joined Riverside in 2014, after 16 years as an elected official  in Oakland – first a councilman, then city attorney – and four years managing Alameda. He’d earned mostly positive reviews in his Riverside tenure, but a spat between Mayor Rusty Bailey and the council over the contract extension erupted into a lawsuit and a split vote to terminate Russo.

The Irvine City Council voted Tuesday, July 10, to give Russo a two-year contract at a base salary of $303,014 a year – a bit of a pay cut from the $323,946 he was earning in Riverside. His total compensation package in Irvine, including medical, retirement and other benefits, is worth $456,662 annually.

Russo is the fifth city manager in Irvine’s nearly 47-year history. He replaces Sean Joyce, who retired in February after 13 years with the city.

Irvine Mayor Don Wagner said the council looked into the issue of Russo’s dismissal from Riverside and was satisfied with his explanation.

“It’s not something that we shouldn’t be concerned about, but it appears to us to be, well let’s just say a political power struggle – and there’s no question in those types of circumstances the employee loses out over the elected” official, Wagner said Wednesday.

Russo pointed to the Riverside council’s praise of his leadership when the new contract was discussed in February. He noted the two lawsuits over the contract aren’t directly about him – one is about whether the mayor can veto the city manager’s contract, and the other questions whether the contract’s provisions were legal.

Mayor Bailey said in February that Russo’s new contract was overly generous and it was the wrong time to approve it, with potential budget cuts on the horizon.

Reached Wednesday, Riverside Councilman Mike Gardner – who voted with the majority to fire Russo – said Russo is a forward-thinking manager who helped shore up the city’s financial position and brought more openness to city government.

But for the relationship to work, he added, “There has to be a comfortable fit, and it ultimately in Riverside got to where the fit just wasn’t quite right any longer, at least for some council members.”

Russo was an at-will employee and people shouldn’t “read anything underhanded or illegal” into his being fired, Gardner said.

Russo and Wagner both said they hope to work together on solving a budget gap the city has used one-time revenues to close the past two years.

As he did in Riverside, Russo said he plans to move Irvine to a two-year budget cycle and publish city meeting agendas 12 days ahead so council members and the public have more time to read them. Wagner said the council is “fully behind” those ideas.

Russo starts in Irvine on Monday.