HAYWARD — City officials here have plucked their new city manager from Alameda and the new hire is a familiar name — Jennifer Ott.
Ott, who first joined Hayward’s executive team in 2018 as a deputy city manager, left in 2022 as an assistant city manager for her most recent job as Alameda’s city manager. According to her new contract, she is expected to start on Dec. 8, and will earn a base salary of $393,000.
“I am very excited for the opportunity to join former and new colleagues at the city of Hayward and meet the immediate challenges and future opportunities together,” Ott wrote in an Oct. 16 news release. She did not attend Tuesday’s meeting because she was attending the Alameda City Council’s meeting instead.
Alameda has started this year under the leadership of newly appointed City Manager Jennifer Ott, above, who most recently served as the city of Hayward’s assistant city manager. Ott is a familiar face to many Alamedans, though, having served in the city of Alameda for 13 years as acting assistant city manager, (former U.S. Navy) base reuse and transportation planning director and as Alameda Point’s chief operating officer. She recently answered some questions from Sarah Henry with the city of Alameda.
Ott inherits several challenges as she returns to Hayward, which faces a $12 million budget deficit and other troublesome budget issues, such as the $31 million hole in the city’s reserves, a revolving door of administrative employees and a current hiring freeze.
The city placed Ott’s predecessor, Ana Alvarez, on administrative leave after a closed session meeting in May before she resigned on June 24. Officials have previously not revealed the circumstances of Alvarez’s departure.
But records obtained by this news organization show Alvarez appeared to clash with several Hayward employees because of an attempt to bring workers back to the office five days a week and end a hybrid work-from-home schedule that dated back to the coronavirus pandemic. Many city workers, depending on their jobs and departments, are allowed to work from home a couple days each week.
When Alvarez tried to enact a “Return to Office” policy earlier this year, several workers from different city departments pushed back against her, signing a letter requesting her to reconsider the policy.
In a letter sent on April 10, Elizabeth Blanton, a Hayward senior planner, and Nallely Campos, a community program specialist, expressed concerns from multiple employees of losing the “popular benefit.”
The employees wrote that they see the hybrid flexibility as “fiscally neutral to the city and has been proven to boost productivity and employee retention and morale, which ultimately greatly benefits the community that we serve.”
Steve Kowalski, another senior planner, wrote in a May 6 email to Alvarez requesting she reconsider the new return to office policy, noting that his wife’s nonprofit, which provides nursing mothers with breastmilk for children, allows much of her staff to work from home up to twice a week.
“You’re going to lose some good people, and the city’s customer service is going to suffer for as long as it takes to find replacements for them,” Kowalski wrote.
Shortly after, officials put Alvarez on leave. This news organization requested records on Alvarez’s performance evaluation, which the city has not yet released.
In selecting Alvarez’s permanent replacement, Mayor Mark Salinas said officials narrowed a list of candidates down to three finalists before ultimately selecting Ott. It is unclear who the other two finalists were.
Salinas called Ott “an impeccable administrator” who is “starting off by giving back.” He noted she “made concessions” in her overall compensation when she opted to give back 4.5% of her benefits package to the city. This comes after Hayward leaders in September decided to slash their own salaries while dealing with the current budget deficit.
“Every little bit counts today when we’re trying to navigate out of our budget woes, and I absolutely respect the fact that she acknowledges that,” Salinas said. “I wanted to thank her for that.”
Councilman George Syrop said Tuesday night that he is “feeling optimistic,” and said the city appears to be “beginning to stabilize.” He added that Hayward is “finding our footing” and said hiring Ott is “a step in the right direction.”
“This has been a very difficult year on the council as we faced a budget deficit that we did not expect, as well as a need to go through the city manager recruitment process a second time around,” Syrop said. “The year ahead is going to be difficult, still. We haven’t tackled this deficit problem yet, and I want to make sure we celebrate the occasion by bringing in a very experienced city manager that has deep ties and deep history into Hayward.”