Sean Belk:
Contributing Writer
Signal Hill City Manager Ken Farfsing has announced he is retiring after serving as the City’s top executive for 19 years. His last day will be June 30.
“Signal Hill has made tremendous improvements over the last two decades due [to] the able guidance of the City Council, the dedication and work of an outstanding city staff, the efforts of our commissioners and volunteers, our residents and business community,” he said in a two-page letter to Mayor Larry Forester and the City Council. “It has been an honor and privilege to have served you during the past two decades.”
Farfsing, 61, is recommending that the City Council at its next meeting on Tuesday, April 7 choose to interview Deputy City Manager Charlie Honeycutt, who has worked for the City for more than 25 years, for the city manager position, according to a city staff report.
However, the Council, which is scheduled to conduct the interview at its meeting on April 21, still has the option of choosing to conduct an outside executive recruitment, the staff report notes.
Additionally, Signal Hill Community Services Director Pilar Alcivar-McCoy has recently announced she will be retiring in July. City management is recommending that the Council promote Community Services Manager Aly Mancini to that position.
In an interview with the Signal Tribune at City Hall this week, Farfsing said his retirement ends a 37-year career in public service in which he has worked for five different cities in Southern California.
Before being hired as Signal Hill’s city manager, Farfsing worked as the city manager for the City of South Pasadena, the deputy city manager for the City of Downey and the community development director for the City of La Verne.
He said his first public-service position was an 18-month internship with the City of Santa Fe Springs while earning his master’s degree in planning at USC, noting that the city, similar to Signal Hill, is known for having oil.
“I kind of look at my career as being bookended in communities with oil,” Farfsing said. “I started as a student in a community with oil, and I’m retiring in a community that has oil. It’s kind of interesting to see the parallels between the two communities.”
Reflecting on his tenure in Signal Hill, which celebrated its 90th anniversary last year, he said a main challenge has been and continues to be dealing with the impacts of oil production while growing residential and commercial development.
“There’s a lot of complexity to Signal Hill because of the fact that it was and still is a major oil producer here in California,” Farfsing said. “When you think about it from a management and planning standpoint, having that oil heritage and also the fact that the oil field is still operational, adds to the complexity of your job.”
Farfsing has led the City during a time when Signal Hill has gone through what can be considered its most significant transformation.
In 1996, when he was hired, vacant lots overran the city with contaminated soil left behind from the days when oil production was once in full swing, Farfsing noted.
“Other than a few large condo buildings, the hilltop was basically just full of antennas and tumbleweeds,” he recalled. “There wasn’t really a lot there.”
At the time, the City had just come out of a moratorium on hilltop development and had downzoned the area in an effort to push for more single-family homes than what the previous zoning had allowed. In addition, there was only one shopping center, including the Costco and Home Depot.
However, the City was able to use its now defunct redevelopment agency to fund oil-well cleanups, spurring the construction of the auto center and four additional shopping centers that have attracted major retailers, boosting sales-tax revenue for the City.
Sales-tax revenue has been vital for the city’s growth, he noted, adding that Signal Hill is a “no-low” property tax city and only receives 6 cents of every property-tax dollar while the rest goes to the County of Los Angeles and the Long Beach Unified School District.
As the city’s population has grown to more than 11,000 residents with the construction of new homes, the City focused on strengthening its public-safety services, including adding more police officers, Farfsing noted. During his tenure, for instance, the Signal Hill Police Department’s budget has nearly doubled from $4.3 million to $8.1 million.
Though some of the police-department budget’s growth can be attributed to inflation, Farfsing recalls that in the 1990s a blue-ribbon committee was formed to figure out how to build a new police station to house a larger police force.
While the committee’s recommendation of increasing the utility-users tax was voted down, the former Signal Hill Redevelopment Agency was able to approve an $18-million bond to fund the new police station, which was completed in 2013.
Other notable changes that occurred during Farfsing’s tenure include: contracting with Los Angeles County instead of the City of Long Beach for fire services; working with Congressmember Steve Horn for Signal Hill to obtain its own ZIP code (90755); and planning the construction of the EDCO transfer station that brings in additional revenues to the City for refuse disposal.
While Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed legislation that would have enabled the City to use former-redevelopment bond proceeds to construct a new library, Farfsing said he is “optimistic” the project will eventually be completed, whether it’s through new legislation this year or through saving city funds.
Farfsing said a major test for the City in recent years, however, was dealing with impacts of the Great Recession. While the City of Signal Hill had built up reserves, employees also “stepped up” to endure salary freezes and concessions, preventing layoffs and cuts to city services.
Farfsing admitted that he could have retired a few years earlier but decided to stay while the City weathered impacts of the recession. However, Farfsing said the City is in a solid financial position with special reserves now totaling $10.8 million and the City’s General Fund Reserve totaling $6.1 million.
“I feel really fortunate to have worked here,” Farfsing said. “I just feel it’s time for me to move on. I think we’ve got some really talented people in the organization who can step up to help out.” ß
