Palo Alto Mayor Liz Kniss announced today (June 25) that council, in a closed session, decided to promote Ed Shikada, currently the assistant city manager and utilities general manager, to the position of city manager, replacing Jim Keene, who is retiring at the end of the year.
Kniss said that the council viewed Shikada as a “strong internal candidate” and that led to the streamlining of the hiring process. In 2008, council reviewed 42 applications before hiring Keene.
“We know we are facing an incredibly competitive marketplace in terms of city manager candidates, and the council felt strongly it wanted to ensure Ed was our next city manager before he was recruited away by another city for an opportunity,” Kniss said in a statement.
Shikada joined the Palo Alto city government in 2015 as assistant city manager and later added the job of utilities general manager in October 2016. He came to Palo Alto from San Jose, where he was city manager from 2013 to 2015.
His base salary for the position will be $356,000 with a total compensation package to include an $18,500 contribution to a 457 deferred compensation account. Shikada will receive a temporary housing allowance of $4,000 a month until he is able to finalize permanent housing in Palo Alto. The city charter requires the city manager to live in Palo Alto. His current salary as Assistant City Manager and General Manager of Utilities is $303,000.
Public was entirely shut out of this hiring process. How come I’m not surprised.
Good choice. We don’t have to break him in.
I think it’s great that they can hire from within and go with a known quantity. It’s a credit to Jim Keene that he has people on his staff who can move up. I would hope that he does some kind of listening tour to find out how people feel about the issues. Some of the council members aren’t very good listeners.
He couldn’t mess things up more than they are now.