Healdsburg names new city manager, making him top paid in Sonoma County

Healdsburg has chosen its next city manager, naming Jeff Kay, who is serving in the same role in San Leandro, as the city’s next chief executive.

He is set to take over at a critical time, with the city’s finances battered by the pandemic recession and experiencing a high turnover among top staff, along with new faces on the elected council.

The City Council selected Kay, 43, after a five-month recruiting period that began in May and included in-person interviews last month. Kay was among three finalists for the job and the council appointed him on 5-0 vote at their regular meeting. He is scheduled to start on Jan. 1.

“I’d like to get him tomorrow. He just blew me away on most of his answers, so I felt very strongly he was the guy to bring our community together,” said Mayor Evelyn Mitchell. “I think he could really be part of our community, and was really interested in Healdsburg if only because he likes Healdsburg.”

Kay has been in his current role in San Leandro since July 2018 and has been with that East Bay city for 11 years, holding various jobs, including overseeing business development.

“Small-town character … is a term that seems like every community throws around, but it really seems to mean something in Healdsburg in terms of quality of life. The sense is palpable when you’re there in the community,” Kay said. “It also strikes me as a place that’s not afraid of change and to take on some challenges and adjust, and not keep everything the way that it has been, so that appeals to me as well. There are a lot of exciting projects on the horizon and that type of work suits my strengths and is part of what drew me there.”

The Hartford, Connecticut, native holds a bachelor’s degree from Vassar College and a master’s in urban community and regional planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Kay went on to work more than three years as an economic development consultant to local governments around California with Anaheim-based Willdan Financial Services before starting his career in city government.

Kay will have his work cut out for him in Healdsburg.

The city was staggered by big blows to its tax revenue from sagging tourism business amid the coronavirus pandemic. A majority of residents have also said they are fed up with hotel developments that have proliferated in town, according to past city polling. Those projects, however, have been a main engine of economic growth and a funding tool for Healdsburg to add to its affordable housing stock ― another major dilemma for the city of 12,000, with one of the highest median home prices in the county.

Three major developments stand to reshape the community are in construction. The high-end Montage Healdsburg resort on the city’s northern edge expects to open sometime next month, but requires renegotiation of the building agreement to sort out planned housing and other public amenities. The North Village hotel and housing project nearby is still in its early stages, and the Mill District hotel-retail-housing project in central Healdsburg is aiming to break ground by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, the city is still grappling with the fallout from protest movements that targeted city leadership and alleged a long, largely concealed history of racial discrimination in the city. Then-Mayor Leah Gold resigned in the immediate wake and the four remaining council members appointed businessman Ozzy Jimenez, Healdsburg’s first person of color on the council in nearly three decades, and only the third in the city’s 153-year history.

Kay highlighted community outreach during his tenure in San Leandro, where Asian, Latino and Black residents together comprise nearly three-quarters of the population. That experience, he said, should translate well to breaking new ground with Healdsburg’s Latino residents, who make up 30% of the popuation.

“Government needs to work hard to understand who is not represented in the conversation and include them, and be proactive about it. Not sit back and wait,” Kay said. “I think that’s really important work, and is consistent with my values. I don’t mean to suggest it’s easy or that I have all the solutions. But it’s not something you put a year into and it’s fixed and you don’t worry about anymore. It has to be built into the thought process in everything you do.”

The City Council is also likely to be a platform for change, with three seats open in November, and two incumbents opting not to run for reelection. As a result, in just a six-month period, the council is poised to see four of its five seats change hands, perhaps complicating the leadership task for City Hall after the departure of several senior staff members over the past year.

To help with that transition, the city sought someone with past experience as a city manager. Council members feel confident Kay is up to the task.

“He was the one who stood out as somebody who will be able to navigate all of those things,” said Vice Mayor Shaun McCaffery, one of the incumbents not running for reelection. “He kind of came through a planning background and that’s something that we need in Healdsburg … because we have a lot of projects that are coming up in the future and a lot of projects that already are underway. It also has a longtime, historical residential base that needs to be taken care of as well.”

Kay will succeed David Mickaelian, who stepped down as city manager in July after almost six years on the job, and 15 years with the city, to become general manager of the homeowners association for Tahoe Donner in Truckee. Dave Kiff, a former city manager in Newport Beach and part-time special projects manager for Healdsburg since March, has served in the interim role and is expected to stay on until Kay takes the reins.

Kay’s base salary of $251,500 will make him the highest-paid city manager among all of Sonoma County’s nine cities, and place him among the county’s highest-paid public officials. The city managers in Santa Rosa and Rohnert Park — two of the county’s three largest cities, managing much larger municipal budgets — each make roughly $10,000 less per year in regular pay. County Administrator Sheryl Bratton, who oversees multiple county departments and its $2 billion budget, was paid $257,270 in base salary last year, according to state records.

Kay’s financial package also includes $19,500 in deferred annual compensation, health, retirement and other standard benefits, plus a one-time $8,000 relocation reimbursement. The total pay and benefits package is about $5,000 less annually than his predecessor, who last year earned about $275,000 between base salary and other pay, not including benefits.

“We didn’t go into it lightly, but we had a lot of conversation around it, and this was the decision the council thought was well worth that to get the best here in town to run the city,” Mitchell said. “He will more than earn that salary in the future for the kind of benefits he’ll provide to the community and to the city.”

With San Leandro, Kay made more ― nearly $263,000 in base salary and about $20,000 in other pay, plus benefits valued at almost $107,000, according to state records.

“I’m at a point in my life where there are things more important than maximizing every last dollar. That’s the gist of it,” Kay said. “Something feels right about Healdsburg, and I’m fortunate with either scenario to be compensated well enough and it’s fine, so I’m grateful for that.”

You can reach Staff Writer Kevin Fixler at 707-521-5336 or kevin.fixler@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @kfixler.