Santa Barbara Metropolis Administrator Rebecca Bjork introduced on Thursday that she can be retiring after working for the town for greater than 30 years.
“I’m pleased with my many accomplishments on the metropolis and have drastically loved working for such an exquisite group for thus a few years,” Bjork mentioned. “I’ll sincerely miss the superb employees I work with daily.”
Bjork was first appointed to the place of Metropolis Administrator on an interim foundation after changing longtime administrator Paul Casey when he retired in September 2021. A couple of months later in February 2022, Bjork formally took the place.
Earlier than her time as metropolis administrator, Bjork labored her manner up serving a number of administrative roles. From 2007 to 2014, she served as the town’s Water Useful resource Supervisor, and through that point she helped cleared the path with renewal and substitute tasks for water mains.
She has served as an interim group improvement director, serving to streamline the town’s improvement course of. Throughout the pandemic, she labored to handle the town’s homeless encampments.
Within the metropolis’s announcement, Mayor Randy Rowse mentioned that Bjork has served the town with “exemplary dedication and functionality by way of complicated instances” because the administration navigated COVID, monetary challenges, and staffing points.
“My confidence in Ms. Bjork’s management and decision-making is unwavering. Her administration insurance policies inside the group have ensured that the cabinet shouldn’t be naked, and that our departments have strong persevering with constructions,” he mentioned. “Whereas I’m unhappy to see her go, I’m additionally grateful on behalf of the town for Ms. Bjork’s a long time of service and keenness for Santa Barbara.”
In an interview with the Unbiased following the announcement, Bjork mentioned that the choice was “completely at her personal discretion,” and that she was very keen on all the workers she had labored with over the previous 37 years within the metropolis. She mentioned that she had been planning on retiring inside the subsequent three to 5 years, and that she didn’t need to delay the eventual seek for a everlasting administrator.
With youngsters in faculty and a husband that can be lately retired, Bjork mentioned she is wanting ahead to the subsequent chapter in her life, however that she is totally assured that the town is in a great place to discover a substitute.
“We’ve obtained such a great government group,” she mentioned. “All of our departments are sturdy.”
Throughout her temporary tenure as administrator, Bjork oversaw some tense metropolis debates on the way forward for the State Road Promenade and the 2024-25 price range, however in line with a number of Metropolis Corridor sources, and Bjork herself, these moments didn’t issue into her resolution to retire.
The Metropolis Council will focus on the recruitment course of quickly, however at this level it’s unsure whether or not the town will promote from inside or recruit a wide range of candidates. Bjork will serve by way of the tip of the yr whereas the town finds her substitute.
