City ponders its options if Gayden leaves

The president of the Long Beach City Council has appointed a committee to study a possible replacement for City Manager Donna Gayden — who is credited with revitalizing the city’s once woeful finances — if she decides to leave when her contract expires the end of 2023.

Council President Karen McInnis announced the committee’s formation, and named John Bendo, Roy Lester and Tina Posterli to it, at the end of the council’s Nov. 1 meeting.

Later last week, McInnis wrote in an email statement to the Herald that “With CM Donna Gayden’s contract expiring in a little over a year (12/31/2023) it is necessary for the council to ensure continuity in the role, whether that be a contract extension for CM Gayden, or the recruitment of a new City Manager.

“The Council is just doing its job as any professional board would,” the statement concluded.

John McNally, a spokesman for the city, said the administration would have no comment.

Gayden, who was hired in February 2020, and signed a new contract last November extending through the end of 2023, has not said she would leave the city manager’s job. Her contract has a base salary of $203,000, a $13,000 increase over her beginning salary.

Gayden has been described several times as an itinerant manager who would remain in the job only until Long Beach’s financial problems were solved. A municipal finance expert, she previously worked in the Midwest.

City Council member Roy Lester said that he assumed Gayden would leave when her contract is up.

“It’s her time,” Lester said.  “She wants to move on. We will be OK. Change is always necessary.”

Lester said he believed the city would hire a search firm to look for a successor. “That doesn’t preclude we won’t hire an insider,” he said. “This just gives us a wider choice.”

Posterli said last week that the committee had yet to meet.

Gayden is credited with leading a turn-around in Long Beach’s financial situation.

Last May, the city received a favorable report from its outside auditing firm. That good news was attributable in large part to the settlement, after three decades, of a $151 million lawsuit by the developer Sinclair Haberman, who took Long Beach to court after city officials failed to support his building plans before the Zoning Board of Appeals.

The city has agreed to pay Haberman $75 million and allow him to build two 13½-story residential buildings on Shore Road. Council members hailed the agreement as a victory, saying that paying out $151 million would have further damaged Long Beach’s credit rating and finances.

Gayden was hired after the city raised taxes by over 8 percent in both 2018 and 2019. In 2020, the state comptroller’s office issued a blistering report on the city’s finances, and a payout scandal was investigated by the Nassau County district attorney’s office and resulted in severe criticism of the former city manager, Jack Schnirman. The city has also filed suit against at least a dozen former employees it said wrongly collected separation money. Some of those sued have filed countersuits against the city. The cases are pending.