OXNARD : New City Manager Holds Staff Forum

Days after assuming the post of Oxnard city manager, Thomas Frutchey called a meeting Thursday to define his management style and try to win over the city’s rank-and-file workers.

In an unprecedented move, he invited the city’s more than 800 employees to an afternoon of frank discussion about the city’s business and he asked their help in making it work better.

To start, Frutchey pledged $5,000 of his $104,500 salary to reward workers who deserve recognition. He also vowed to require each employee who reports to him to conduct evaluations of each of his or her workers.

“Then we’ll have a cascade effect and get back to the point of doing good performance reviews,” said Frutchey.

Although the 250 or so employees who showed up at the Oxnard Community Center for the gathering cheered loudly when Frutchey announced the new cash-award program, several expressed doubt that much would change.

“Generally, the whole morale of the city is down--and he knows it,” said one housing department employee, who asked not to be identified. “But this is a first step to try and make things better.”

Other workers complained through questions written on index cards that firefighters were in their 16th month without a contract, that clerical workers are paid less than their counterparts in other cities, that hourly employees do not receive health benefits and that women are underrepresented in the city’s upper management.

“We’re a poor city,” Frutchey said, comparing Oxnard to a similar-sized city such as Hayward, which has a budget roughly twice that of Oxnard.

“It’s frustrating and disappointing, but I think it’s a reality” that many fiscal concerns will go unaddressed until the recession turns around, he said.