Irvine City Manager Is Removed in ‘Transition’

The mayor doesn’t call it a firing.

The city manager won’t call it a resignation.

Instead, in classic Irvine jargon, it is a “transition.”

But whatever you call it, Irvine’s first and only city manager, William Woollett Jr., will no longer hold that job come Aug. 1.

Despite the pleas of about a dozen residents, the council in a closed session early Wednesday morning removed Woollett, 60, from the city’s top administrative post, effective Aug. 1, amid criticism that the new council majority was playing power politics.

Under the “transition plan” that Woollett submitted under pressure, he will continue on from Aug. 1 to Nov. 1 as “city manager emeritus” to work on special projects, and the council may vote to retain him beyond that date. The plan was approved by the council in a 5-0 vote, Mayor Larry Agran said.

“It is not a firing,” Agran said. “We could have taken action unilaterally” and dismissed Woollett immediately, he said. “When you’re fired, you don’t submit the terms of your firing.” He described the closed session, which lasted until about 1 a.m. Wednesday, as “friendly and respectful.”

But Woollett, who has been city manager since the city incorporated 17 years ago, said before the closed session that his hand was forced.

The transition plan “is predicated on the fact that the council wants another city manager. That’s very important. They are terminating me. I am not resigning,” Woollett said Tuesday. (He was not available for comment Wednesday.) “If the City Council said, ‘What do you want to do,’ I’d like to stay for the foreseeable future.”

In a city known for its pretty street names and bureaucratic euphemisms (the police chief’s title is also “director of public safety”), the term “transition plan” did not mask the heated feelings at the council meeting Tuesday night.

Calling Woollett’s removal a transition “is like asking (executed murderer) Ted Bundy to participate in an after-life experience,” one resident told the council.

Others charged that Agran and the new council majority are playing power politics. Woollett helped form the city and is responsible for its growth and success, they contended.

“You, the new political power gang, are saying, ‘It will be our way,’ ” said resident Ray Quigley, who was a member of Irvine’s first City Council. “What a chilling message . . . what political arrogance.”

Another resident called the mayor a “socialistic dictator.”

In a memo 2 weeks ago, Agran asked Woollett to write two “transition plans,” one that would have him stay on in an “emeritus” position and the other that would not. Woollett’s contract is due to expire July 1, but the city manager asked for an extra month, Agran said. Agran said in the memo that it was the “sense of the council” that it was time for a change.

But Councilwoman Sally Anne Sheridan, who is not an Agran ally, pointed out Tuesday night that the council had never before discussed Woollett’s removal, “formally or informally.”

Agran said the City Council began talking about a transition plan 5 years ago, when Woollett was ill and there was concern that he would not be able to return to his job. Also, the council wanted to be prepared as Woollett approached retirement age, Agran said. “This is just a continuation of the process.”

But Agran’s differences with Woollett appear to be pressing the issue now.

Two years ago, after city elections produced a council majority sympathetic to Agran’s slow-growth leanings, the council sat down with Woollett and “indicated we wanted to prepare for new city management.” Woollett at that time asked for 2 more years, Agran said.

The new council members have brought “a new progressive agenda for the city” on such issues as open space, traffic concerns and recycling, the mayor said, adding: “The city is clearly ending one phase of development and beginning a new phase.” City management should reflect that, he said.

“This is a city in transition,” Agran said. Irvine has grown from a small community to a city of more than 100,000 and one of the 200 largest municipalities in the country, he said. “We are a complicated organism involving commercial and industrial and an agricultural economy. It’s very clear that we’re going to need new approaches to complicated problems, such as transportation and air quality. That’s the evolutionary stage in which the city finds itself,” Agran declared.

Agran added that the council did not discuss specific reasons with Woollett in the closed session.

The council postponed until its next meeting further discussion on whether to promote Paul Brady, assistant city manager, to the post or whether to recruit a new city manager from elsewhere.