CMx2 v.2

They say you can never step into the same river, twice.  The idea being rivers are constantly changing.  Rising and falling with source water, while meandering within valleys they carve over eons.  Every second of every day, every river is a new river.  Fair enough, but I don’t know the official ruling on bays.  I am about to find out, and I’m going in thinking the same ever-changing concept applies.

Monterey Bay, specifically.  There’s some lovely little cities looking out over Monterey Bay and I used to work for one of them.  Seaside, California.  If there is a more evocative place name in America than Seaside, California, I’ve not yet heard it.  From January of 2016 to September of 2021, the standard city manager rule applied.  If something went wrong in Seaside in that time frame, it was my fault.  If something went right, it was because we had a great staff and (I’m gonna go with) spritely elected officials.

Spritely is a terrific starting place for any City Council, but all the more so for Seaside.  You see, the majority of those lovely little cities looking out over the Monterey Bay National Maritime Preserve are both too rich and too afraid of anything that might possibly change in their town.  They face the future with existential dread that tomorrow can never be better than yesterday.   More specificaly, with lawyers filing NIMBY lawsuits to keep everything just exactly how it is -- and was -- whenever they made / inherited / swindled enough to make it to paradise.  But not Seaside.  Seaside has a proud (and feisty) history, but it ain’t afraid of making a future that’s better than its past. 

I did my part accelerating that future for about six years and did it ok enough that they’ve asked me back for a few months while they search for a new city manager.  Being CAO of two municipalities 2,000 miles apart is an admittedly new trick.  But I learned how to juggle way back on the loading docks of JC Penney, and Orville and Wilbur invented airplanes, so we’ll give it a try.

By the way, where does North Carolina get off with their “First in Flight” tagline?  Wilbur and Orville were from Ohio. 

Some mysteries go unsolved.  But what happens after I leave a city has a bit of a record.

One such city (Davenport) is a complete mess.  Seriously disastrous stuff that’ll hobble Davenport for years, if not forever. 

Seaside is -- happily -- not so messy.  Important projects started while I was there are still moving forward.  The Fort Ord Reuse Authority is dead and buried.  Hundreds of acres of former military base overlooking Monterey Bay are now under the City’s sole control to build an environmentally responsible, resource-laden future with.  The pandemic is in the rear-view mirror.  Housing and hotel-tax generating projects are about to break ground.  There are a few personnel challenges to get through but an otherwise bright future and healthy fund balance. 

I have an intractable love for the place and people of Seaside.  Seaside is brimming with first and second generation Americans and the kaleidoscopic legacy of being next door to one of the nation’s first (now closed) integrated military bases.  The community palpably vibrates with the energy of citizens who at once fully believe in the promise of American social mobility, while being empathetic about those who need help to live the American Dream.  Walkable neighborhoods, corner grocery stores and a melting pot of fantastic ethnic mom and pop restaurants; a happy consequence of a not quite impermeable southern border and soldiers coming back home with spouses from all over the globe.  Perfect cool weather and daily sunsets over the bay are also easy to get used to.

The Ed Stone mid-century modern gem of a City Hall?  Still swanky.  KRML and the Weekly?  Still the best radio station and newspaper for hundreds if not thousands of miles.   Big Sur, Amoeba Records and Yosemite?  Right where I left them. 

Not that Poynette needs to worry.  Our forever home, the swell Village Board, the intractably midwestern roots and offspring, and the adventure club of Poynette Fire may not be an international tourist destination with constantly perfect weather, but that’s just fine.  Snow is fun, and home is home.

Good luck Davenport; it was fun while it lasted.  

Good morning Seaside; let’s get to work.