Previous Oceano Community Services District general manager Paavo Ogren takes the reins again 

A familiar face is returning to the Oceano Community Services District (OCSD) in 2024.

Beginning on Jan. 1, OCSD's previous general manager, Paavo Ogren, will take over as interim general manager from current General Manager Will Clemens, who's retiring on Dec. 31.

Clemens told New Times that Ogren was the perfect candidate to take over for him and feels confident in Ogren's ability and experience to lead the district through its projects next year.

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• File Photo By Jayson Mellom
• BACK AGAIN Paavo Ogren will return to the OCSD as its interim general manager on Jan. 1, 2024, to aid in the search of finding a permanent replacement after current General Manager Will Clemens retires on Dec. 31.

"He's going to be a great interim general manager because he has a history with the district," Clemens said. "He should allow the district to keep moving forward without a hitch."

Ogren, who served in Oceano as general manager from July 2014 until December 2019, told New Times that he was general manager during a period of reshaping and transforming the district.

"Oceano had seven general managers in seven years, and it was really bad, so my five and a half years was really spent doing a lot of cleaning up on stuff like capital project planning," Ogren said. "You know, I have a good history with Oceano that goes before 2014, back to when I was the public works director and in other positions at the county. I used to do a lot of good work with Oceano."

Clemens announced his sudden retirement at an October board meeting where he said "the dysfunction of the board came to a head" at its previous meeting, which "culminated" when the district's legal counsel quit.

"This new board direction lacks clarity," he said at the Oct. 25 meeting.

The board's infighting and increasing state of disarray made its way to SLO County 4th District Supervisor Jimmy Paulding through a series of complaints from local residents. Paulding responded by submitting a letter to the OCSD board encouraging it to start promoting an environment of respect and professionalism.

"As a fellow elected representative of the unincorporated community of Oceano, I am reaching out to offer guidance and my support to the Oceano Community Services District. Following your board meetings of Oct. 11 and Oct. 25, 2023, several Oceano residents have reached out to me and expressed their concern over the current state of the district and its board of directors," Paulding wrote in the letter. "Having watched these meetings, I too have concerns about board incivility and dysfunction."

While Ogren didn't comment directly on the board's current state, he said that his time with the district will be limited, so he plans to focus on finding the best future general manager for the OCSD while also overseeing district projects.

"The district has one project going on right now in the school district, where they're doing a recharge project, and they were also just awarded the contract for a storage tank rehabilitation project," he said. "But what Oceano really has coming forward is a significant capital improvement plan where they will be doing a lot of replacement of old water lines. So, in addition to helping the board with the recruitment of a permanent general manager, we're also going to have to look at what are going to be the staffing needs for this big capital project coming up."

Although he's technically already retired, Ogren did fill in as interim general manager of the Los Osos, Cambria, and San Miguel community services districts, and the California Public Employees' Retirement system will only allow him to work for one more year at half time.

Clemens said this will help the district save a bit of money while the search for a permanent replacement continues.

"He'll be a full-time contract employee because he worked for the district prior but there's certain laws that limit how many hours he can charge in a fiscal year," Clemens said. "He also won't get any other benefits other than his salary."

While it could seem counterintuitive for the district to hire an interim manager while looking to save money, Clemens said it was necessary because he only gave a two-month notice of his retirement, which isn't enough time to find a proper, permanent replacement.

"Sometimes this process can take months because you'll run a recruitment and you won't find a suitable candidate, so you'll have to run another one, and that's what happened here," he said. "They ran a recruitment and didn't get too many qualified candidates, so the board conducted interviews but decided to run another one, so I don't think they want to rush the process here. Getting an interim in temporarily will keep things going."

While the district is working on new capital projects and creating new committees, Ogren said he's excited to get to work.

"The OCSD has a lot of good things going for it, and the key is to help with an orderly transition of a new permanent general manager who can meet the historic needs of the board which includes traditional services of water, wastewater, and trash while also some of the new things that the board wants to work on like the Parks and Rec Committee," he said. "Next, it's just reviewing applications and matching up the best applicant for the needs of the district. We'll be putting together job postings and setting deadlines for people to submit applications and whatnot pretty soon."

Ogren said this will be his last rodeo, and it's almost a full-circle moment to have it be in Oceano.

"This is my last opportunity to do something good, something before I retire, and it's really satisfying to work with a small group of people," he said. "I do think Oceano has a lot of good things going forward, and it's nice to work with the board to pick a good general manager because we're here to ensure the stability of the district, and a general manager is important to keep things from crumbling." Δ

Reach Staff Writer Samantha Herrera at [email protected].