Board members of the Cambria Community Services District (CCSD) were left scrambling to fill the general manager position after the John Weigold abruptly announced his resignation on Nov. 13.
In his letter to the board, Weigold explained his decision to resign after three years on the job: He’s engaged and will be moving to the Santa Barbara area.
“I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for the knowledge and experience I have gained by working with you, the board, and staff at the district,” Weigold wrote. “I am very grateful for the time I have spent on our team and the professional relationships I’ve built. It’s been a pleasure working for you, and I hope our paths will cross again in the future.”
While Weigold’s official last day was Nov. 15, public calls for his resignation echoed throughout Cambria, particularly during the Nov. 10 CCSD board meeting. During closed session, the board conducted a performance evaluation of the general manager. While no action was taken at that meeting, Claudia Harmon Worthen urged the board to fire Weigold.
“When faced with challenges, Mr. Weigold, in lieu of experience, hired consultants to create reports and perform studies that he should have written or overseen. He has proposed hiring a full-time assistant to do his daily tasks,” Worthen wrote in a letter to the board. “He attends policy committee meetings, but does not participate, even though his advice or clarification is often needed.”
Weigold’s decision to hire Cambria’s newest fire chief has been contested by many Cambrians, such as Gail Stevens and Robert Fountain, who felt that the hiring reflected Weigold’s lack of communication and management skills.
“Mr. Weigold is often very late in providing needed and timely information to both the board and the public, in order for them to assess and determine the proper approach for the CCSD,” Stevens and Fountain wrote in a public comment letter. “The absence of proper information for the evaluation and hiring of the new fire chief was shameful, and an indication of his poor communication and management skills with both the board and the public.”
They also called out Weigold’s slow progress on getting a coastal development permit for Cambria’s water reclamation facility.
“Rather than working cooperatively with those agencies toward the coastal development permit application for the [water facility], Mr. Weigold consistently showed a lack of cooperation,” they wrote. “Required environmental studies have been routinely put on the back burner for years, despite that such studies often take a year or more to complete.”
Due to the sudden departure of Weigold, the CCSD held a special meeting on Nov. 16 where board members answered questions from the public regarding the process to select Weigold’s successor.
“The board has broad discretion to choose whoever they feel qualified to hold that acting general manager position, so the sky’s the limit,” said District Counsel Timothy Carmel.
Once the board had answered questions from the public, they went into closed session and unanimously chose Ray Dienzo, CCSD engineer, as the acting general manager. Δ
This article appears in Holiday Guide 2022.