Seaside to appoint former city manager as its interim while search begins
SEASIDE – Former Seaside City Manager Craig Malin says “I’m happy to help Seaside any way I can,” as the City Council considers an executive employment agreement to hire him as the interim city manager.
Since April 18, Seaside has had Chief of Police Nicholas Borges serve as acting City Manager during the leave and ultimate termination of former City Manager Jaime Fontes after nearly two years of service. Fontes began working for Seaside after Malin resigned to spend more time with his family following COVID-19 and serving in his capacity with the city for more than five years.
The city gave direction to its staff last week to start the process of recruiting a new city manager, beginning with the request for proposals for an executive recruiter to fill the permanent position of city manager.
Once the executive contract is approved, the council can appoint Malin, who retired from service in California, as the interim city manager. California’s Government Code of Public Employee Retirement law limits both the number of hours and the compensation which may be paid to a retired annuitant.
The city manager position has a salary of $250,000 per year or $125 per hour, plus additional benefits, including but not limited to retirement, health, vacation, executive and sick leave. Malin can only work 960 hours in fiscal year 2024-2025 to perform city manager services and only during the recruitment process for a new city manager. According to the executive agreement, Malin would be in Seaside for 20-30 hours, he will attend meetings and will have flexibility as to how to handle his work schedule. It is anticipated that he will be in Seaside primarily on Thursday and Friday (and perhaps some Wednesdays), however, this schedule remains flexible.
Malin currently lives in Wisconsin and is the village administrator of Poynette, north of Madison. He will not receive any travel allowance or housing allowance as these benefits would violate the CalPERS rules. Malin will be allowed to work remotely.
“I’ll be splitting my time between Poynette and Seaside,” said Malin via text.
The plan is for Malin to both commute by air and telecommute by technology, while back in Wisconsin.
“I’ll be physically in Seaside Thursday through Saturday and available by Zoom, phone, etc. Monday through Wednesday,” he said.
Malin said he is confident he will be able to serve both communities during his time as interim city manager.
“It has been a real honor to work directly with each department within our city,” said Borges of handling his expanded role. Borges, who returns to his duties as police chief, said when he was given the additional duties the city was in “a challenging position.”
“It was budget season and our finance director had just resigned,” said Borges. “Even with a late start, our acting finance director stepped up in a big way and we were able to get our budget vetted and approved by City Council right on schedule.”
The acting city manager had some notable news and developments since he took on the role — such as having a boat mural go viral and make the national news. He also created the HIGH-5 program, Helping Improve Gardens and High weeds, as a way to help those not able to trim weeds on their property, as a way to be more community oriented instead of making the situation more difficult.
“Our staff really came together in so many ways and enhanced many things,” said Borges. “We included weekly training for all of our department heads during our meetings and we made numerous improvements throughout city hall to include placing large signs above city hall windows to present a more professional and efficient appearance. We also enhanced our conference room and made positive changes to our recruitment process to ensure we are competitive with surrounding agencies.”
Seaside Water Action Team, established under Borges, holds monthly meetings “to ensure the city has a structured and strategic effort as it relates to addressing water needs.”
Borges said that during his time, the city was able to hire numerous people in various departments, and that effort continues.
“We had some challenging times while I was up at City Hall, but we maintained a positive attitude and knew we would overcome anything that came our way,” said Borges. “As I return to the police department, I thank our police staff who all stepped up to keep us on track.”
