Wildomar names interim manager, attorney

By: AARON CLAVERIE - Staff Writer
New staffers to guide council-elect before and after incorporation | Thursday, March 20, 2008 12:27 AM PDT ∞

WILDOMAR -- Former Elk Grove City Manager John Danielson was named Wildomar's interim manager and Julie Hayward Biggs, the attorney for Banning and Goleta, was named temporary city attorney during Wednesday's meeting of the Wildomar City Council-elect.

The interim staffers will be offered good-faith agreements in lieu of contracts because the council-elect will not have funding to hire staff until after the city incorporates July 1.

Danielson and Biggs, who both have experience working with incorporating cities, will help the council-elect prepare for the incorporation meeting by submitting to the state the proper legal paperwork involved with forming a city. They also will help the council-elect with more nuts-and-bolts concerns, such as finding a good place to hold meetings and setting up a phone system.

The council-elect did not select a candidate Wednesday to fill a position titled "interim staff manager/engineering services/consultant" even though such action was listed on the agenda.

Council-elect chairman Bob Cashman said the council-elect could not come to an agreement on filling that position during a nine-hour closed session meeting on Tuesday. At the meeting, the council-elect interviewed job candidates and discussed hiring matters, which are legally permissible discussion topics for a meeting closed to the public.

In September, Danielson resigned from his Elk Grove position, wrapping up a six-year tenure that saw the Sacramento suburb doubled in size. Elk Grove was incorporated in 2000.

He stepped down, according to Sacramento newspaper accounts, after the city's mayor, Jim Cooper, made "management change" one of his top priorities.

Wednesday's meeting, the second public preincorporation meeting, was held at Cornerstone Community Church in a building known as the "small church."

The meeting was held there, in part, because the Lake Elsinore Unified School District, which offered up the use of one of its campuses for the first meeting, asked the council-elect to sign a "hold harmless" agreement that would make Wildomar responsible for any liability lawsuits stemming from activities there.

Council-elect member Scott Farnam, a member of the panel's facilities subcommittee, said he wasn't comfortable signing that sort of agreement because the council-elect doesn't hold any insurance and can't pay for any until the city is incorporated.

The council-elect voted 5-0 to continue meeting at Cornerstone until another site is found.

Biggs, during an interview following the meeting, said the council-elect made the right call.

She recommended continuing to hold the meetings at Cornerstone if the school district was going to require a "hold harmless" agreement.

Regarding the legality of meeting at a church, Biggs said the state's open meeting laws do not stipulate in what sort of structure a public agency can meet. It only requires the agency meet inside the boundaries of its jurisdiction, she said.

Talking about her other responsibilities, Biggs said she would be able to devote the proper amount of time to both Banning and Wildomar. She said her firm, Burke, Williams and Sorensen, of Riverside, is phasing in a new city attorney in Goleta.

Danielson said he has read through the fiscal analysis that was used by the county to justify placing the incorporation question about Wildomar before voters.

While he said it was an honest document, Danielson said it needed to be tested in relation to current economic conditions.

"We need to look at it in today's finances, and it's something we need to be ever vigilant on," he said.

If projected sales tax figures or property tax numbers fall short of estimates, the city will need to adapt and live within its means, he said.

-- Contact Aaron Claverie at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2624, or aclaverie@californian.com.