By Ryan McDonald, Easy Reader News
Hermosa Beach City Manager Tom Bakaly was appointed CEO of the Beach Cities Health District Monday night, winning the unanimous approval of district board members, and signaling his departure after nearly four years with the city of Hermosa.
Bakaly takes the helm of the special-purpose district, which provides preventative health services to Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach and Hermosa, effective Nov. 1. He will make his official announcement to Hermosa city staff Tuesday morning.
As city manager in Hermosa, Bakaly worked with the health district on a number of different projects, including the city’s “Living Streets” initiative, the Blue Zones project, and Hermosa’s recently expanded ban on smoking in all outdoor public spaces. He said in an interview Monday evening that the opportunity to continue working on these issues was what drove him to pursue the job with the district.
“The idea of working with the board to create a healthy beach community — for me at this point in my career is just awesome,” Bakaly said. “I’m very excited to build on the success we’ve had in Hermosa, and expand it to all three beach cities.”
Bakalay will earn a base salary of $235,000 in his new position. He replaces outgoing BCHD CEO Susan Burden, who announced her retirement in March. The district hired Teri Black and Co., a Torrance-based recruiting firm, to find a replacement.
Bakaly, who had previously engaged Teri Black in Hermosa’s search for a public works director, was one of more than 100 applicants presented to the district’s leadership and elected Board of Directors, Burden said. Burden was excited when she saw Bakaly’s name among the list of contenders, and believes that his experience with a wide range of issues will serve the district well.
“This job requires business acumen, financial acumen, real estate, HR — he brings all of that,” Burden said. “And for health care issues, he’s got a team to use as a resource.”
Vanessa Poster, an 18-year member of the district board, agreed that Bakaly’s skill set was an excellent match for the organization. She said that the district differs from a city, though, because there are fewer opportunities for a manager to be pulled in competing directions.
“We are singularly focused on creating healthful beach communities, which gives us a bit of a purpose,” Poster said. “Whereas with a city council, you can have different agendas, different constituencies.”
An agenda for Hermosa’s Tuesday night City Council meeting, posted Friday afternoon, indicated that the city would be considering appointment of a city manager or interim city manager in closed session. Bakaly said that the process of appointing a replacement would be left to the council. His contract requires only that he give the city 30 days notice before leaving, but he said he would be willing to stay on longer to help with the transition.
Bakaly came to Hermosa after serving as city manager for Park City, Utah, taking helm of the city at a crucial moment. He arrived in summer 2012, just as Hermosa was negotiating a settlement with Macpherson Oil. The settlement lifted the cloud of a potential $750 million court judgment against the city, but set up the March 2015 electoral showdown over Measure O, which would have removed the city’s ban on oil drilling in its tidelands.
Despite tense disagreements in the run-up to the election, the measure inspired a strong sense of community pride. Residents decisively rejected the measure, requiring Hermosa to float a $17.5 million bond to pay off E&B Natural Resources. Bakaly said securing at AA+ bond-rating for the city despite servicing the oil-related debt was one of proudest accomplishments of his tenure.
Looking ahead, Bakaly’s replacement will face several issues, among them the future of fire services delivery as the city ponders options including contracting with the Los Angeles County Fire Department. The Hermosa Fire Department has struggled with staffing issues in the last year, and both the fire and police departments have spent a portion of the year working out of temporary facilities. Bakaly said he appreciated the contributions of city employees, impressed with how they were able to weather financial difficulties.
“In my 28 years of government service, I’ve never seen a city do so much with so little,” he said.
Once installed in his new job, Bakaly will enjoy one fringe benefit perhaps more than any other: brief board meetings. In accepting the new position, Bakaly poked fun at the tendency of Hermosa’s public meetings to drag on into the wee small hours of the morning.
“I know you keep your meetings short, and it makes me want to cry. For anyone who’s ever seen a Hermosa City Council meeting, you understand,” Bakaly said with a laugh.
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