Ian Bain Candidate Profile and City Manager Update

As the City of Redwood City website states: “Redwood City operates under the ‘council-manager’ form of government, meaning that the Council appoints the city manager, who is then responsible for the administrative and staff-appointment duties. The Council also appoints the city attorney and the city clerk, and makes appointments to City boards and commissions. But, contrary to the ‘strong mayor’ form of government (such as that in Oakland, San Francisco, and other larger cities), the day-to-day operations of the City are under the authority of the city manager.”

On May 4th, the City’s Human Resources Manager, Leah Lockhart, gave Council an update on the process for hiring a new City Manager that she explained involved an initial planning stage, a secondary outreach stage and a third and final evaluation and selection stage. Teri Black and company was the recruiter selected to run a national search. The City also solicited resident’s input through an online survey. During the meeting, Ms. Lockhart explained that we are in a very competitive hiring market.

The City Manager appoints and manages the City’s department heads (Chief of Police, Fire Chief, Public Works Services Director, Community Development Services Director, Human Resources Director, Parks, Recreation and Community Services Director, and Finance Director) and a team of 521 employees. In fact, City Manager Bob Bell and Fire Chief Jim Skinner just retired. Their last day of work as employees was yesterday. Although Fire Chief Skinner has signed a three month contract that could be terminated earlier if the City finds a replacement.

Ian Bain

Born in Berkeley, Ian Bain, as a child moved around quite a bit even living in Redwood City on the corner of Farmhill and Jefferson between the ages of six and seven. Although most of his K-12 education was in the Palo Alto public school system where he attended Ohlone Elementary school, Wilburt Middle School (now Jane Lathrop Stanford JLS Middle School) and then Gunn High School; he actually graduated from Berkeley High School where he had been Student Council President. After high school he attended the University of California at Berkeley where he studied Political Science.

His first job out of college he worked at Kainos Home and Training Center where he worked with adults with training disabilities. His work included helping them develop job skills through programs such as Landscaping. Then helping them find jobs and mediating any issues that might develop. He worked at Kainos for seven years and to the day volunteers with them including sponsoring an individual during the organization’s yearly Achievement Gala.

Then he spent fifteen years working with various public relations firms. He now works in public relations at a global data center headquartered right here in Redwood Shores which is where I met him to talk about his plans to run again for Council.

The first two times in 1995 and 1997, Ian ran for Council he lost. The second time he lost by 127 votes. However in 1998 a seat became vacant and he was appointed to the balance of the term. Running as an incumbent in 1999 he lost again. At that point he took a break for a couple of years bought a house and decided instead to focus on his family. Since divorced he has two children who live with their mother: one that attends JLS and the second who will be going to Gunn in the fall. He is now engaged to be married in April.

In 2003 he ran again and finally won. Given term limits, this is his last run before he has to take a break. Although he assured me that at least at this moment he intends this to be his last run.

When I asked him what he had accomplished as a council member he was very specific in giving examples of how he has helped. When Ian first became a council member there were thirteen uncontrolled intersections in Redwood City. This means that they had no stop signs or traffic lights. Today all thirteen intersections have stop signs thereby increasing safety and reducing accidents. He also negotiated with Joe Simitian from CalTrans to transition the maintenance of Woodside Road to Redwood City due to the prior lack of maintenance. In another example he mentioned how in 1998 when he had just recently been appointed Council member, he helped a resident located on Kandlewood Way behind the Safeway on Woodside road obtain a street light that increased security in the area.

When I asked him what he wanted to accomplish as a council member going forward Ian mentioned there were still a couple of things he wanted to finish. One of the projects that was top of mind was the Middlefield Road improvement project which involves moving the utilities underground and adding better streetscaping to the area. In fact he mentioned that this whole project had ended up being expanded to include working with Warren Slocum of San Mateo County to help revitalize the North Fair Oaks section of Middlefield Road.

Given that the City had just announced that Assistant City Manager, Aaron Aknin was going to be Interim City Manager, in closing I asked Ian what was going on with the City’s search for a new City Manager. Ian mentioned that there was a closed session discussion coming up. I did follow up with him regarding it’s outcome and he wrote me: “We have a leading candidate for City Manager and are doing due diligence on that person. Because of new laws that were enacted, we can’t make an appointment in closed session, but I think it’s likely we can make an appointment in late July.”

To learn more about Ian Bain visit his website at www.ianbain.com

Coming next: Rosanne Foust