Claremont’s Community Services Director Kathleen Trepa has announced she will be heading to the city of Goleta, near Santa Barbara with a population of about 55,000, after accepting the deputy city manager position.

Ms. Trepa came to Claremont in 2012 after a more than 20-year career with the city of San Marcos. She replaced the city’s previous human and community services director, Michele McNeill, who left Claremont after just six months.

Pat Malloy will once again serve as interim director, a position he held until December of 2010 when, under a struggling budget, the city cut the director of community services position entirely. Mr. Malloy had worked for more than 30 years for the city of Arcadia.

In April of 2010, Mr. Malloy went before the community services commission to express his concern that outsourcing services like trash collection would leave the department gutted.

“If we lose the solid waste program, there’s nobody left in the department,” Mr. Malloy said. “We’ve got a monstrous, beautiful facility down there with just a few people around. Right now in the administrative building, there are six of us occupying the building with over half the building empty. I mean, it’s like a ghost town.”

At the time, community service commissioners were also worried that the shift from using city employees to outsourcing services would impact Claremont’s image of a well-maintained and attractive city. Commissioners and city staff mulled over downsizing to a more traditional public works department or dissolving the department altogether, with staff and functions being shifted to other departments like human services and engineering.

Instead, the city of Claremont combined the human and community services departments, with Ms. Trepa at the helm. The departments were split up again earlier this year after the city hired Anne Turner as its director of human services.

Mr. Malloy currently receives about $145,000 a year from CalPERS from the city of Arcadia. City council will have to approve the agreement, which includes a state mandate that he may not work more than 960-hours per fiscal year. Mr. Malloy’s pay scale for the part-time, interim position with Claremont was not included in the council agenda packet.

Pending city council approval on Tuesday, May 26, Mr. Malloy will begin work on Monday, June 8.  Ms. Trepa’s last day is Thursday, June 4.

—Kathryn Dunn

editor@claremont-courier.com