Despite, or perhaps because of, some influencers adamantly militating on her behalf, Rochelle Clayton is on the losing end of a progression of sentiment against her aspiration to move into the long-term city managerial post in the county seat.
The absolute support for Clayton’s that existed four months ago among all eight elected decision-makers with the authority to hire the city’s top tier employees has dwindled to two. Even though both of her supporters – Mayor Helen Tran and newly-installed Councilwoman Treasure Ortiz – remain committed to seeing her shed the qualifiers “acting” and/or “interim” from her current title, past and recent events have transpired which have created what is described to the Sentinel as a “virtually unbridgeable” gap with three of the council members. The basis for mutual accommodation between Clayton and a fourth council member, in the words of an individual, knowledgeable about the interpersonal relationships at the pinnacle of San Bernardino government, has been “severely compromised.” Meanwhile, two of the three newest members of the council whose participation in a coalition that would effectuate Clayton’s elevation had been taken for granted have been exposed to information and experience that have impressed on them that the supposition of comity that was to proceed from cohesion and consensus among no fewer than five of the council and the mayor was not just unrealistic but unworkable, given the conflicting priorities of those involved.
Mayor Tran, whose first two years in office following her 2022 election have been marred by managerial uncertainty and inconsistency, for months has been heavily banking upon getting Clayton installed as the undisputed city manager so that she can choreograph municipal policy and action to create a record of accomplishment that can be attributed to her mayoral administration.
Clayton, who was hired by former City Manager Charles Montoya to serve as deputy city manager in April 2024, the following month was propelled into the role of acting city manager when the council precipitously fired Montoya on May 22. Over the next four months, Clayton was able to convince not just Tran but all seven members of the council that she was patient enough, energetic enough, devoted enough and competent enough to run San Bernardino County’s most populous city, one that has had for decades financial challenges that led to its Chapter 9 bankruptcy filing in 2012, serious proliferation of crime that consistently puts it among the 50 most violent cities in the country, a seemingly intractable problem with homelessness among hundreds of individuals who have taken up presence in the city, social problems exacerbated by rampant drug use/vice activity among a growing segment of the community and crumbling infrastructure.
During a closed session of the council held beyond the scrutiny or earshot of the public on October 2, 2024 the city council unanimously indicated it was amenable to hiring Clayton as the full-fledged city manager.
That led to the formulation of an employment contract with Clayton by which she would begin at an annual salary of $325,000, subject to an annual cost of living increase tied to the consumer price index and capped at 5 percent, another $11,619.95 in perks and pay add-ons and $115,693.41 in benefits, for an initial total annual compensation of $452,313.36.
The city council would have voted to officially promote Clayton into the city manager’s post and ratify the contract at its regularly scheduled October 16, 2024 city council meeting, but because the city council on that day was engaged in a League of California Cities convention, that meeting was cancelled. The council action to formally commit itself to hiring Clayton was to take place at its first regularly scheduled meeting in November, on November 6, 2024. In the meantime, an additional provision to the contract was added whereby the city was to provide Clayton with a one-time relocation benefit of $10,000, if she were to move to a residence within the boundaries of the City of San Bernardino within two years.
First Ward Councilman Ted Sanchez had initiated inquiries, capped with the filing of California Public Records Act requests, for information relating to the city’s ongoing efforts to obtain state funding for planned homeless assistance programs in the city. Toward the end of October, Sanchez learned through the responses to his filing that less than two months after Clayton had taken on the acting city manager assignment, she had been informed by the California Department of Housing and Community Development that San Bernardino had been selected to receive a $17 million Homekey grant to pay for a sizeable percentage of a $24 million homeless shelter the city intends to build on Sixth Street.
Clayton had not informed the city council about the state’s offer of the money and, again without informing the council, she notified Sacramento that the city was declining the money. Sanchez would also learn that the city had under Clayton’s watch failed to lay claim to another $3 million grant from San Bernardino County to pay for homeless service efforts because the city had not made three adjustments to its planned homeless assistance strategy that would have qualified it to receive the money. When this was brought up for discussion during the closed session prior to the public session at the November 6, 2024 council meeting in which Clayton’s hiring was to take place, the council elected at that point to pull the ratification of the city manager’s contract from the public portion of the meeting agenda, placing her hiring, or at that point possible hiring, into indefinite abeyance.
There ensued a redoubled effort on the part of Mayor Tran to recapture the council consensus to elevate Clayton into full-fledged city manager status. Joining her in this endeavor was then-Sixth Ward Councilwoman Kimberly Calvin, whose bid for reelection during the city’s March 2024 municipal election had come up short. Calvin therefore saw installing Clayton as the city’s permanent city manager as a possible enduring legacy that would live beyond her time on the council, which was set to end in December. Joining with Tran and Calvin in their belief that installing Clayton as city manager would be a sound move was then-Fifth Ward Councilman Ben Reynoso. Reynoso, like Calvin and then-Seventh Ward Councilman Damon Alexander, had failed in his March 2024 reelection attempt, and was due to leave office before the end of 2024. He was ready to join with Calvin and Tran in designating Clayton as the city’s top administrator, a development which yet needed the support of two further members of the council. Those votes, however, proved elusive. Alexander was troubled over the city’s rejection of the state and county money that could have been put to use in homeless relief efforts and the contretemps that followed. Based on how Sanchez and some of the other members of the council were reacting to what Clayton had done with respect to the grant money that could have been used to get the homeless off the streets, he had become convinced it would be best if no decision on who should be lodged in the city manager’s office was made until the three new council members who were to replace Reynoso, Calvin and him – Kim Knaus, Mario Flores and Treasure Ortiz, respectively – were in office so they could weigh in on whom they wanted to work with as the city’s top staff member.
That left Mayor Tran scrambling to convince two of the remaining members of the council – Sanchez in the First Ward; Sandra Ibarra, representing the Second Ward; Juan Figueroa, the Third Ward Councilman; and Fourth Ward Councilman Fred Shorett – that Clayton not only was capable of running the city but that there was very little prospect the city could find, without engaging in a long and drawn out recruitment effort, someone more qualified and suited to the task than she is.
Realistically, based on Sanchez’s role in uncovering the facts surrounding the city’s failure to grasp onto the $20 million for homeless support programs available from the state and county and how he had to go to extraordinary lengths to get that information, there was virtually no chance he would provide one of those votes.
That left Shorett, Figueroa and Ibarra as the elected officials from among whom the two votes in Clayton’s favor had to be harvested. Shorett, in the initial going with Clayton stretching back to May 2024 when the sacking of Montoya took place, had been the council member most enthusiastic about Clayton. It had been his advocacy on her behalf as much as anything else that had convinced Tran, Figueroa, Reynoso and Calvin that the city could rely on her guidance. In May 2024, Sanchez, Ibarra and Alexander had been skeptical enough about Clayton to not go along with the five others in making her interim/acting city manager. Over the summer, Shorett had retained his enthusiasm for Clayton while Sanchez, Ibarra and Alexander had grown sufficiently comfortable with her and her ostensible performance that by late September Tran and the council were all in on turning the keys of the city over to her. What Sanchez had unearthed in October about Clayton’s unilateral decision to forego the grants that would have gone a good way toward mitigating a long-standing problem jarred something in Shorett that he could not shake: the feeling that entrusting Clayton with full managerial authority would likely result in her not merely functioning in the administrative capacity at the behest of her political masters on the council that is the purview of the city manager but that she would usurp the policy-making role that rightfully resided with him and the rest of the council. Shorett’s support for Clayton could no longer be counted upon.
For that and other reasons, Clayton’s advancement had moved into the hands of Figueroa and Ibarra, who would both need to be in assonance with the Mayor, Calvin and Reynoso to achieve the magic number of five votes needed to make Clayton the captain of San Bernardino’s ship of state. The virtually always-agreeable Figueroa, who gets along with just about everyone, was unable to sign on to a commitment with Clayton without a clear sign of majority support of her from his colleagues. Ibarra was noncommittal and hard to read. As November gave way to December, it looked more and more as if promoting Clayton would need to take place after the three new members of the council were seated at the dais.
Still, in a fateful round of actions which in retrospect ultimately look to have backfired, Clayton and her backers in November sought to orchestrate a final push to get her across the finish line. That multi-pronged approach involved a heavy-handed lobbying effort that crossed, in some cases, from asking for the council members to consider Clayton’s qualifications and attributes while suggesting that she would do well in the city manager’s role to outright threatening those whose votes were needed with dire consequences if they didn’t support her. Developer Scott Beard contacted Sanchez, and Ibarra, telling them that if they did not vote to promote Clayton, he would pour enough money into the campaign coffers of their opponents in the 2026 election to drive them from office. Simultaneously, city employees and their unions began a full court press to convince the members of the council who were not in favor of dropping the interim/acting qualifiers from Clayton’s job description that she represents the city’s future.
Simultaneously, Mayor Tran and Councilwoman Calvin initiated an effort to relieve San Bernardino of City Attorney Sonia Carvalho and her firm, Best Best & Krieger, other partners and firm associates who serve as the city’s assistant city attorney, deputy city attorney and both planning division and real estate affairs legal advisors. Clayton signed onto that effort, at least partially out of the belief that Calvin, utilizing multiple examples of excessive legal fees, settlements and conflicts of interest, would make a strong enough case to convince a majority of her colleagues that the city should separate itself from Best Best & Krieger and that the momentum from that break would carry over into a decision to promote Clayton.
Those on the council no longer sold on Clayton formulated a counterplan to have the consulting firm of Jacob Green & Associates, which conducts executive management evaluations and analysis, examine the circumstance and survey members of the council as to their managerial expectations as well as the qualifications of applicants or potential applicants for the city manager post. Jacob Green & Associates features among its staff of former municipal management professionals Teri Ledoux, who from 2019 until 2020 served as city manager in San Bernardino and would therefore, it was hoped, be able to provide a realistic determination as to who would make a best managerial fit for the city.
Giving indication that she now recognized that she would need to compete for the job rather than just have it handed to her, Clayton said she was requesting that she be moved back into the deputy city manager’s position, essentially so she could be considered as a city manager candidate but remain with the city as deputy city manager if she was not selected. This gesture further put the city into the position of having to fill the interim city position, what some saw as a ploy to force the city to simply hire Clayton to be done with the continuing instability.
It became apparent, through public statements that they made before they were sworn into office that both Flores and Ortiz were in favor of promoting Clayton. Knaus gave indication she wanted to become part of a team effort to cooperatively govern the city, suggesting she was prepared to adapt herself to the management personnel and structure that were in place. Mayor Tran gave up on trying to advance Clayton before Reynoso, Calvin and Alexander departed and shifted toward ensuring that once Knaus, Flores and Ortiz were in place that the city’s managerial suite would be given permanent form in accordance with her expectations.
On December 18, the installation of the new city council took place and the members were apportioned into a seating arrangement on the council dais designed by the mayor herself to facilitate a fluid exchange of ideas, questions and positive interactions among the new and existing members. Whether because of the mayor’s effort at match-making or other factors, there was a showing of camaraderie in the course of the meeting that was unseen for years, most remarkable, perhaps, because Ortiz, whose criticisms of the council while she was in the capacity of a common citizen were de rigueur in the past, had given way to what to all outward appearances came across as friendliness toward Shorett, Sanchez and the mayor, who had been constant targets of her disdain.
Mayor Tran had scheduled a special meeting of the council the morning after the December 18 regular meeting at which she intended to get a council consensus on the process for selecting a fully-empowered city manager, but upon seeing the show of courtesy and considerate behavior among the council members the night previously, she sought to determine if there had materialized the will to hire Clayton. That was not the case, but Tran interpreted the tea leaves to indicate such an outcome was yet achievable.
Upon sober reflection, it is recognized that the threats which were made to Sanchez and Ibarra and by extension to Shorett regarding efforts to unseat them in 2026 if Clayton were not given the city manager promotion served only to harden Sanchez in his resolve to prevent Clayton from becoming city manager and further alienated Ibarra and Shorett. The endorsements that Clayton received from the Teamsters Local 1392, which represents city workers as well as from the San Bernardino Police Officers Association and the San Bernardino Police Management Association, while calculated to positively influence Tran, Knaus, Flores and Ortiz, strong unionist Democrats all, were nevertheless seen as improper. In upcoming negotiations with those unions over setting the terms of the city employees’ and police officers’ salary and benefit packages over the coming two to three years, it will be the city manager representing the city. Hiring Clayton as city manager, when she is beholden to the unions for their support of her, after which she must negotiate with those unions, represents a future conflict of interest thoughtful members of the council will want to avoid.
The tension that now exists between Clayton and Carvalho and between Clayton and the remainder of the Best Best & Krieger firm, particularly since there is no consensus on the council to end the city’s relationship with Carvalho and her firm, adds to the reasons not to draft Clayton into the city manager’s post.
Meanwhile, Jacob Green & Associates is conducting interviews with the members of the city council, getting from them a sense of what they want in the leader of city staff. This militates against Clayton’s selection. While Tran’s, Knaus’, Flores’ and Ortiz’s experience as city officials came after Ledoux’s tenure as city manager, Sanchez, Ibarra, Figueroa and Shorett were in place while Ledoux was managing the city and its affairs. A primary trait in Ledoux’s tenure was her exacting insistence on keeping the council – the entirely of the council and not just then-Mayor John Valdivia – in the loop with regard to developments at, around and within the city governmental structure. With regard to all decisions of substance beyond routine day-to-day operational matters, Ledoux consulted with the council and either obtained informal but implicit direction from a majority of its members or formal direction in the form of a council vote before proceeding. For Sanchez, Ibarra, Figueroa and Shorett, that contrasts sharply with their experience last year when Clayton canceled the city’s reception of the $17 million grant from the state and the $3 million in funds from the county, all of which was earmarked for homeless service programs.
The seriousness with which Sanchez, Ibarra, Figueroa and Shorett view that particular action alone, in and of itself, might preclude Clayton from getting the five votes she needs to move into the city manager’s post on a permanent basis. Her defense with regard to that element of her performance, or at least the one posited on her behalf – that she made a command decision to have the city decline the money because in both cases it was to come with strings attached with regard to how the funds could be applied to homeless assistance programs and would therefore complicate arrangements the city had already made with regard to such programs it was undertaking – does not suffice. At the very least, Sanchez, Ibarra, Figueroa and Shorett believe, they should have been informed that the state had offered the city the $17 million. That she rejected the money without consulting anyone makes it doubly worse, in their view. Whether the city was prepared to meet the conditions stipulated by the state and the county in order for the city to receive that money was a decision the city council should have participated in, Sanchez, Ibarra, Figueroa and Shorett believe.
For Knaus and Flores, who already knew that the city was dealing with a homelessness crisis but were unaware of the details with regard to the way in which the city allowed the $20 million in state and county money to elude it, what they have learned since coming into office has given them pause.
The give and take, back and forth between the city council members and Jacob Green & Associates, in individual one-on-one sessions and exchanges and in anticipated workshop-style discussions will in large measure shape the recommendations to be given to the council as to who, or at least what type of experienced manager, should take the helm of San Benardino’s municipal operations. Given input from the council and information exchanged already, it appears the gravitational pull is moving Rochelle Clayton away from the city manager’s office rather than toward it.
Some observers have stated that part of the San Bernardino municipal managerial crisis is that Sanchez, Ibarra, Figueroa and Shorett look at Clayton, her experience and her range of talent and skills, seeing the glass as half empty rather than half full. This perception is balanced by the reality, it was remarked, that in seeking someone who must manage the City of San Bernardino with its litany of systemic, social, financial, historic, attitudinal, reputational and existential challenges, the glass has to be all the way full.
Nevertheless, Mayor Tran and Councilwoman Ortiz remain, somewhat unreasonably, hopeful that events will transpire which will bring their council colleagues to a conclusion that, all things considered, having Clayton in place to guide city staff toward fulfilling mayoral and council direction is the best circumstance they can achieve.
-Mark Gutglueck