CHINO–Matthew Ballantyne, Chino’s city manager designee, convinced the city council to hire him by actively campaigning for the post, simply out-hustling 70 other applicants for the job.
Ballantyne, 38, six years ago landed what for many in the city managing profession might consider a plum assignment: city manager in San Marino. He was brought into that position after eight years as a city staff member.

Matthew Ballantyne

San Marino was once considered the most affluent city in the world, where its residents had a medium income higher than any other municipality on earth. It is home to the Huntington Library, and remains an exclusive bastion. The median list price of a single family home in San Marino was $1,987,500, as of July 2010.
Incorporated in 1913, the Los Angeles County city’s founders envisioned it as exclusively residential, with picturesque  properties intersticed with well-manicured gardens and parkways, paseos, vistas and wide streets.  Nearly a century later, it maintains its hauteur.
But at just 3.77 square miles in land area and 13,147 population, the city reached build out long ago, with more than 97 percent of its current housing stock having been put in place between 1920 and 1950.
For Ballantyne, running San Marino has been fulfilling at the same time that it has been frustrating.
With master’s degrees in both public administration and urban and regional planning, Ballantyne has longed to utilize his refined level of expertise in the professional setting he finds himself in. There have been no major development projects in San Marino during his tenure there.