Rancho Palos Verdes RPV city manager Doug Willmore to leave job
Rancho Palos Verdes City Manager Doug Willmore in 2017. Photo by David Fairchild (DavidFairchildStudio.com)
Rancho Palos Verdes City Manager Doug Willmore announced on Wednesday that he is retiring from public service after a 15-year career, the last four of which were spent in Rancho Palos Verdes.
He plans to take a position in the environmental industry.
In a statement, Willmore said it’s “very bittersweet to leave such a wonderful city.”
“I will be forever grateful to the City Council for offering me the position, and for challenging me and trusting me over the years to implement its vision,” Willmore said. “It’s rare that you build a relationship with a City Council that works as well as ours has, but we have done that.”
“Being a City Manager, especially in a city like RPV, with such a knowledgeable, concerned and involved citizenry, is not an easy job,” said RPV Mayor Jerry Duhovic. “Doug always handled his duties professionally and competently, especially when dealing with very complex and contentious issues.”
Willmore joined Rancho Palos Verdes in 2015 with a record of reform on his resume. His two previous stops included the cities of El Segundo and Bell.
Hired by El Segundo in April 2011, Willmore was charged with fostering economic development and repairing a budget deficit borne of the Great Recession of the early 2000s. He was directed by then-Mayor Eric Busch to look into taxes paid to the city by Chevron, El Segundo’s largest landowner. Upon investigation, Willmore found that Chevron paid millions less in utility-users tax to El Segundo than other comparable refineries did, under a fixed-tax agreement whose propriety he questioned.
In February 2012, months after reporting his findings, Willmore was fired by the City Council in a split vote.
“I was surprised, but when you find what I believed was wrongdoing — and I think the record reflects that — you take the heat that comes with it,” Willmore said. “Subsequently, the City got huge tax revenue increases from Chevron, and the residents and businesses were better off.”
The City of Bell came calling soon after, seeing an opportunity to hire a proven do-gooder following the scandal-wracked administration of City Manager Robert Rizzo. Rizzo was disgraced after he was discovered to be behind a pension scheme that would see him collect millions of dollars.
Willmore righted the ship; within three years, a city that was on the brink of bankruptcy had cut its debts in half and grown its general fund to more than $20 million.
But, unsure he was willing to manage Bell’s full recovery after completing its turnaround, Willmore followed up on an opening in Rancho Palos Verdes in 2015.
City officials credit Willmore for maintaining long-term financial stability, reducing annual taxes and fees on residents, and working to establish public safety initiatives that cut residential burglaries nearly in half.
Willmore’s final day will be on Nov. 22; in the meantime, RPV will determine how to proceed with selecting its next city manager.