Quick Take
Watsonville will be on the hunt for a city manager for the second time in two years after Rene Mendez was hired to take over as Salinas' top bureaucrat.
Nearing his two-year anniversary of accepting the job as Watsonville’s chief bureaucrat, Rene Mendez was the topic of conversation for two separate city councils Tuesday evening.
In Watsonville, the conversation was colored by loss as councilmembers met behind closed doors to discuss the departure of Mendez as their city manager and how they would fill his shoes. In Salinas, the atmosphere was more relief, as the city councilmembers voted to formally hire Mendez as the city’s own top executive, ending an air of tumult that has surrounded the post for the past few months.
The Salinas City Council’s vote solidified Mendez’s departure from South County’s population center, which Watsonville announced in a Facebook post last Friday. Salinas will pay Mendez $300,000 per year, plus benefits — a chunky raise over the $240,000 salary he earned in Watsonville.
Mendez did not respond to multiple requests for comment. In a statement released by the city last week, he said “serving this organization has been an honor. … I’m confident this community will continue to thrive long after my departure.”
Watsonville hired Mendez with a unanimous city council vote in April 2022 after he had served more than 17 years as Gonzales’ city manager. Mendez was brought in to replace Matt Huffaker, who left less than four years into the job to become chief executive of the City of Santa Cruz.
Councilmember Eduardo Montesino said Mendez’s decision surprised him, noting, “we had almost the same thing happen with the previous city manager, Matt Huffaker.” Yet Montesino said the decision must have been a “no-brainer” for Mendez considering the significant pay raise.
Mayor Vanessa Quiroz-Carter said Mendez told her directly of his resignation while the two were at the National League of Cities’ Congressional City Conference in Washington, D.C., which was held from March 9-13. The mayor acknowledged the lure of a higher salary in “tough economic times.”
“It is what it is,” Quiroz-Carter said. “It’s definitely a loss for the community. We’re going to want someone who is committed to keeping our momentum going forward.”
As city manager, Mendez oversaw the home stretch of developing the city’s reimagined 30-year downtown plan, which he shepherded to unanimous city council approval in October. Mendez also led the city through developing its plan to fit a state-mandated 2,053 new housing units in the city by 2031. In November, his government faced a difficult test after the city council was “Zoom-bombed” by remote callers who coordinated to spew racist and homophobic speech during the public comment section of a meeting. Mendez made the call to temporarily scrap remote public comment; in February, the city council voted to permanently end remote public comment.
Salinas began its city manager search in October after firing Steve Carrigan from the post once it became public that he was flirting with San Bernardino to become that Southern California city’s next top executive. Although Carrigan publicly dropped out of the running for the San Bernardino job and recommitted to his post in Salinas, the city council voted him out of the role.
During Tuesday’s meeting, some Salinas residents said they were surprised by Mendez’s hire, and that they felt the city’s lack of transparency in the hire failed the public.
“How we hire and elect people, it’s not being done the right way, you’re not informing the public,” one resident said at the podium. Another said he thought the public input session should have been held before the hiring, not after the decision had essentially already been made.
“There is an obvious lack of transparency,” one caller said, “but there is a clear lack of communication between what’s going on in the city and … the constituents. It appears to be intentional and it’s frustrating.”
Mendez’s final day with Watsonville will be May 15. He is set to begin in Salinas on May 28.
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