Livingston hires interim public works chief

The Livingston City Council has agreed to hire an interim public works director, a position that has been empty since December 2013.

Gabriel Gonzalez, who has been a city manager in Mendota and Rohnert Park, was approved for the role Tuesday.

“There’s an urgent need for temporary assistance in the public works area and also the general administration of the city,” interim City Manager Odi Ortiz said.

Beyond public works administration, Gonzalez will work with accounting, Ortiz said.

Gonzalez began performing work for the city in January, but the vote this week approved hiring him for six months with an option to renew his position for another six months. He’ll be paid $135,000 if he works the full year, according to the contract.

Gonzalez has more than 20 years of experience in the public sector, he said, including 11 as a city manager or an assistant city manager.

Since 2013, the city has tried four times to hire a full-time director without success, according to records.

Mayor Pro-Tem Gurpal Samra said the city has had difficulty finding someone who qualifies for the position and that the salary being offered may be too low to be attractive. “Budgets were tight, so we really couldn’t offer that much,” he said Wednesday.

The need for help in the Public Works Department became urgent, Samra said, after the December exit of City Manager Eddie Duque, who left after working for the city for just two months.

The city is searching for a new city manager. Samra said that effort would need to be wrapped up before Livingston would look to hire a permanent public works director.

Also this week, Samra said, the state approved the use of Well 13 in Livingston. The filtration system for Well 13 gained the state’s approval for use, according to officials.

Livingston was sued in 2014 by California River Watch, a Sebastopol-based nonprofit, because the city’s drinking water consistently exceeded the maximum contaminant level for arsenic, a naturally occurring element known to cause cancer and other health problems.

The city’s arsenic levels exceeded the state’s maximum contaminant level of 0.010 parts per million numerous times in 2009, 2012 and 2013, according to the court documents.

The city and the nonprofit came to an agreement, which included a new filtration system on the problematic well.

This story was originally published February 3, 2016 at 5:40 PM with the headline "Livingston hires interim public works chief."