October fires, vacation clarify Cloverdale city manager’s decision to retire

The recent North Bay fires, combined with a family vacation in Maui, helped solidify Cloverdale City Manager Paul Cayler’s decision to retire at the end of this month from a 30-year career in public service.

“My wife, Ellie, and I decided it was time to make a lifestyle choice for a more relaxed pace,” he said. “We’ve raised two good kids that are independent adults, and now we would like to spend more time with each other.”

During October’s fires, Cayler was incident commander at Cloverdale’s Emergency Operations Center. Awakened in the middle of the night and alerted to the situation, he immediately headed for the Cloverdale Fire Department where the training room had been turned into the command center. With Fire Chief Jason Jennings leading a strike team out of town, Cayler found himself in charge.

That first week, he barely slept. The first night, he didn’t sleep at all, going home for a few hours the following afternoon to shower and get a little rest before heading back to the EOC.

Cayler’s leadership skills were on full display during the wildfires. Despite the chaos, he remained calm and level-headed, delegating tasks, responding to citizen and media inquiries and issuing regular updates. An evacuation plan was put in place in case winds pushed the fire toward town.

City Council member Gus Wolter was Cloverdale’s mayor at the time and said Cayler ran the entire show for the city.

“He coordinated setting up the shelter at the Citrus Fair, made sure staff called gas stations so people had gas for their vehicles and asked pharmacists to make sure their patients had needed supplies,” Wolter said. “He also directed Public Works to check the city’s water tanks to ensure they were all topped off.”

For Cayler, 52, the fires were a major turning point.

In an instant, people lost everything they had worked for their entire lives. Some died, while others lost their homes, jobs or businesses.

“It was a real wake-up call for me,” he said. “It hit me how fragile life can be, how stuff is just stuff and how everything can be taken away in the blink of an eye. I realized it was probably time for me to make some serious lifestyle changes.”

The following month, he headed to Maui with his wife and oldest son for an already-planned vacation. With toes in the sand, they discussed the possibility of his retiring and what it might mean for their family. Cayler’s family agreed to support his decision to retire from public service.

Returning home, Cayler and his wife started planning. They were going to miss their friends, their church family, their comfortable home with its serene and secluded backyard and Sunday afternoons wine tasting, but they decided to relocate to Chico to be closer to family, including his 92-year-old mother who lives in Citrus Heights.

“I want to spend more time focusing on health, wellness and relationships,” he said. “I’ve already started a walking regime to lose weight and I’m making a concerted effort to get my eating habits back in line with a healthy lifestyle. I especially look forward to spending more quality time with my wife and being able to visit my mom more often.”

They found a house in Chico that suits them perfectly, not too far from the Sierra and ideally located near a park, bike route and fitness center, with easy freeway access.

Cayler’s career in local government began in 1988 when he landed a job as an administrative intern for the city of Redding while still a student at Chico State University. He worked in various capacities for Mendocino County and the cities of Ukiah and Willits before being hired as Cloverdale’s interim city manager in February 2013. He accepted the position on a permanent basis six months later.

Being a city manager in a small town is a 24/7 job. Cayler sleeps with his phone on his pillow. As the city’s top administrator, his job requires working simultaneously with city staff, the City Council and the community-at-large, each expecting his full attention.

“Do the math,” he laughs. “It can be pretty stressful at times.”

The average tenure for city managers in smaller California cities is about four years. Cayler likes to think he beat the odds twice since he was city manager for five years in both Willits and Cloverdale.

Cayler is known for being approachable, both inside and outside of City Hall, down to earth and involved with the community. He listens and explains things clearly, and makes it a priority to return phone calls and emails. Always willing to help, his volunteer work has ranged from helping at the Chronicle Wine Competition to picking up trash after summer concerts in the Plaza.

He is leaving Cloverdale in good fiscal condition.

The 2017 independent audit report showed the city’s general fund balance at $1.9 million, about 32 percent of annual expenditures, a tremendous improvement from five years ago when the balance was at its low point of $175,000.

Also, after many years of no salary increases, the City Council has been able to give the employees modest cost-of-living adjustments the past two years.

Economic development has improved, too, with more retail shopping options, including a new grocery store, a small department store and a health food store, along with a more vibrant downtown.

Two recent annexations have created sustainable living wage jobs, and sales tax revenue is growing steadily.

The Caylers are both from the Sacramento area and attended Chico State University, but it took a Grateful Dead concert to bring them together. They married in 1990 and raised their two sons in Ukiah. The oldest recently graduated from Chico State with a degree in chemistry. The youngest, a Marine, is due back in April from a two-year deployment overseas.

While Cayler is retiring from government service, he has no intention of stopping work entirely.

“I’ve been a supervisor since I was 27 so, ideally, I’d like to do something that requires fewer hours, is more mission driven and helps people,” he said. “I have a few ideas, but haven’t settled on anything in particular yet.”

First though, he and Ellie want to have a little fun, so they plan to buy an RV and do some traveling.

“We want to spend a little time in Utah and Arizona and, since we both enjoy music and baseball, we plan to follow around our favorite bands and ball teams. We’d also like to go on the Canadian Rocky Mountaineer train trip through British Columbia and Alberta. In California, we want to explore the Central Coast, visiting places like Paso Robles, Pismo Beach and San Luis Obispo.”

Assistant City Manager/Community Development Director David Kelley has been appointed to succeed Cayler as Cloverdale’s new city manager effective March 31.

Contact Towns Correspondent Mary Jo Winter at cloverdale.towns@gmail.com.