Costa Mesa to get temporary help with city management, permanent assistants for council

Retired Newport Beach city manager Dave Kiff will give part-time assistance – free of charge – to Costa Mesa while it seeks a new, permanent city manager.

Tammy Letourneau, Costa Mesa’s assistant city manager, has been filling in since Tom Hatch left the post abruptly in November after eight years.

Kiff left Newport in August and became CEO of Orange County’s chapter of the Association of California Cities. He offered to help Costa Mesa, which is a member of the association, without pay, according to a city report. The council on Tuesday, Dec. 4, agreed to draft a contract with Kiff for temporary help.

Letourneau will continue as acting city manager, but she also had a full workload in her old job, so Kiff is expected to “be a sounding board” for council members and help answer their questions, city spokesman Tony Dodero said. Kiff also will assist with the search for the next city manager.

Also Tuesday, the council voted 5 to 2 to hire a chief of staff and three part-time aides to assist the mayor and council in tracking city projects, preparing for meetings and responding to residents’ questions and concerns. Council members Sandy Genis and Allan Mansoor voted no.

Mayor Katrina Foley, who proposed hiring staff for the council, wrote in a report that the new positions will help the expanded council, which grew from five to seven members after the Nov. 6 election.

“This is a changing community and there are a lot of demands on the council to be responsive to the residents,” she said at Tuesday’s meeting.

The decision came after some criticism from residents and a lengthy debate on the dais about the proposal, which will cost the city an estimated $222,000 annually and included cutting a vacant tax auditor job in the finance department.

Council members questioned the report’s wording that indicated the new staff would report to the mayor, which some argued would politicize the jobs. Genis also suggested it could violate the city’s municipal code, which dictates that all staff report to the city manager, except for the city attorney, treasurer and manager, who report to the council.

“I’m just not seeing the need for this,” Mansoor said. “In my opinion this is nothing short of a huge power grab.”

Foley said the city manager would hire and oversee the new positions, but they will work with the mayor and council.