Encinitas City Council to consider appointing new city manager Sept. 9

The Encinitas City Council is poised to officially hire a Santa Barbara city administrator as its next city manager Wednesday, Sept. 9.

Pamela Antil, Santa Barbara’s assistant city manager, is scheduled to start work Oct. 12.

(Courtesy of Pamela Antil)

Pamela Antil, Santa Barbara’s assistant city manager, is being offered a $250,000 yearly base salary and is scheduled to start work Oct. 12, a report produced for Wednesday’s meeting states. She will replace Karen Brust, who retired in June after serving nearly five years as Encinitas city manager.

Sixty-nine people applied for the job, “we looked closely at about two dozen,” and interviewed six, Mayor Catherine Blakespear said Friday, Sept. 4.

“It’s really exciting to have her come to us, both for her background and her approach,” Blakespear said, adding that she particularly liked the fact that Antil has worked in Santa Barbara and Palo Alto.

They’re communities that have “high expectations” for their government officials, and are well-managed cities in coastal locations with highly engaged citizens, the mayor said.

Antil’s personality also deeply impressed her, she said.

“She’s energetic and she’s creative,” and she’s focused on leadership and moving the community forward, Blakespear said, adding, “that appealed to me because that’s how I see our community.”

Antil, 55, applied for the position five years ago when Brust, a longtime Encinitas resident and former Del Mar city manager, was selected.

“When Karen retired, and the position opened again, I thought to myself, maybe the second time’s the charm,” she wrote in an email Friday, Sept. 4.

Antil wrote that she “fell in love with Encinitas” more than 20 years ago, and has a daughter who is a sophomore at San Diego State University.

“It’s evident when one visits Encinitas that the residents love and care for their community,” she wrote. “It’s not only a community that I’d like to visit or serve, but one that I’d choose for my family to live.”

Encinitas and Santa Barbara face similar challenges, including everything from coastal climate change issues to housing concerns, she wrote as she described why the Encinitas job was a good fit for her.

She has served as Santa Barbara’s assistant city manager since 2015. Prior to that she spent nine months as assistant city manager in San Jose and before that four years as assistant city manager in Palo Alto, her resume posted on the web site LinkedIn states. She also has worked in city government in Rancho Palos Verdes and in Ann Arbor, Mich.

She’s active in the League of Women in Government and served as its president from 2015 to 2017. She also writes articles and papers about government issues, ranging from the use of social media to the future of policing, a city press release notes. In 2015, she co-authored a piece titled “Why we need more women running our local governments.”

A former manager for the accounting and management consulting company Grant Thornton LLP, Antil has a bachelor’s degree from Central Michigan University and a master’s degree in public administration from California State University, Long Beach.

She and her husband David, a digital media executive, have two children, Peyton, a sophomore at San Diego State University, and Sydney, who’s a junior at Boston University.

Her proposed contract, which the council is scheduled to vote on Wednesday, Sept. 9, calls for her to receive:

An annual base compensation of $250,000, plus $15,000 paid into a retirement plan;
A monthly car allowance of $500 and a monthly cell phone allowance of $100;
A relocation assistance payment of up to $12,000;
And a rental assistance payment for up to five months that’s capped at $25,000.

— Barbara Henry is a freelance writer for The San Diego Union-Tribune