By Keith J. Nelson, Ph.D. | October 23, 2026
Riverside does not need another career City Manager. Riverside needs a proven business leader—and a Mayor and City Council capable of holding that leader accountable.
As Riverside conducts public outreach to recruit its next City Manager, residents should be asking a far more important question than what qualities they want in another highly compensated bureaucrat:
Why should taxpayers trust the same political leadership and executive hiring system that has repeatedly produced costly departures, lucrative employment contracts, and questionable results?
For too long, California municipalities have participated in what increasingly resembles a taxpayer-funded executive revolving door. Career City Managers move between cities, negotiate generous compensation packages, and frequently secure severance protections that insulate them from the financial consequences of failed leadership.
Executive recruiters collect their fees. Departing executives receive their contractual payments. City Councils announce another nationwide search.
And taxpayers are left holding the bill.
It is time for Riverside to challenge this system rather than perpetuate it.
A $405,696 Salary—and a Job Description That Protects the Club
Consider Riverside’s own 2026 City Manager recruitment announcement.
The advertised annual salary was $405,696, before considering the full value of employment benefits.
Even more revealing was the experience requirement: ten years of progressively responsible management or leadership experience in municipal government, including three years in senior management.
Why?
Why would Riverside automatically limit its applicant pool to experienced government administrators?
A successful private-sector CEO, chief operating officer, chief financial officer, or executive managing a billion-dollar enterprise could possess precisely the financial discipline and organizational leadership Riverside desperately needs.
Yet Riverside’s stated qualifications favor candidates who have spent their careers within the same municipal bureaucracy residents are increasingly questioning.
Municipal experience has value. But it should not be an exclusive admission ticket to one of the City’s most important leadership positions.
Are we hiring the most capable executive—or simply selecting the next member of California’s municipal management club?
Riverside’s Expensive Revolving Door
This is not a hypothetical concern.
In 2022, Riverside authorized up to $44,750 for Ralph Andersen & Associates to conduct an executive search following City Manager Al Zelinka’s departure for Huntington Beach.
The resulting appointment was Mike Futrell, who became Riverside’s City Manager in January 2023.
In April 2026, Futrell announced he was leaving for Pasadena. He subsequently reversed that decision and remained in Riverside, only to separate from the City weeks later.
The separation agreement included a lump-sum payment equivalent to nine months of regular salary and retirement contributions, plus one month of health benefits.
By September, Futrell had been hired as City Manager of Hercules.
Think about that sequence.
Riverside pays for executive recruitment, negotiates a substantial employment agreement, experiences another leadership departure, provides a significant severance package, appoints an interim executive, and begins looking for another permanent City Manager.
Meanwhile, the executive continues his municipal career elsewhere.
The question is not whether any individual has the legal right to change employers.
The question is why taxpayers must repeatedly finance the cost and risk of a system that appears better at protecting executive careers than ensuring long-term organizational stability.
California Has Already Seen Where This Can Lead
Anyone who believes California’s municipal executive compensation system is immune to abuse should remember Bell.
Former Bell City Administrator Robert Rizzo became the symbol of one of the most notorious municipal corruption scandals in California history. His salary approached $800,000 annually, while public officials participated in a system of excessive compensation and failed oversight.
The scandal produced criminal convictions and exposed extraordinary failures in local government accountability.
Bell was not the only warning.
In Vernon, the California State Auditor documented serious failures involving executive qualifications, compensation practices, contracting controls, and financial management.
The audit identified problems in 21 of 25 contracts reviewed and a $28 million General Fund structural deficit in fiscal year 2010–11.
These were not merely political disagreements over management style. They were documented institutional failures.
I am not suggesting Riverside officials have committed the crimes uncovered in Bell. I am suggesting that California’s history demonstrates what can happen when executive compensation, political relationships, and weak oversight operate without meaningful accountability.
The lesson from Bell and Vernon is not simply to avoid dishonest executives. It is to build a system that does not depend on politicians recognizing problems after the damage is done.
Another Charter Officer, Another Golden Parachute
Riverside’s City Manager recruitment is not an isolated example of questionable executive compensation policy.
In June, the City Council approved a City Attorney employment agreement for James Johnson with an annual base salary of $372,624 and a 12-month severance provision for qualifying termination.
The Council also waived its Sunshine Ordinance notice requirements to consider the appointment.
I publicly opposed that contract before its approval.
Why should an individual entering a highly compensated, nominally at-will executive position receive a contractual guarantee potentially worth a year of salary if the hiring decision does not work out?
These provisions protect executives from the consequences of Council decisions while shifting financial exposure onto taxpayers.
An at-will designation means relatively little to taxpayers when exercising that authority can trigger hundreds of thousands of dollars in contractual obligations.
Such contracts deserve meaningful public scrutiny before approval—not hurried consideration accompanied by assurances that the Council knows best.
Photo Opportunities Are Not Economic Development
There is another dimension to Riverside’s executive leadership problem.
Municipal executives work under elected officials who often have political priorities that do not necessarily align with sound financial management.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony looks good on social media.
A committee appointment creates political visibility.
A subsidized economic development project generates press releases.
But none of these necessarily produces sustainable tax revenue, good-paying jobs, stronger reserves, improved infrastructure, or a measurable return on public investment.
Riverside needs executives willing to tell the Mayor and City Council no.
No to speculative projects without defensible financial returns.
No to expensive political priorities unsupported by sustainable revenue.
No to organizational growth that taxpayers cannot afford.
No to compensation increases without measurable performance.
And no to treating the City’s economic development function as a publicity department for elected officials.
The Mayor and Council should establish policy. Professional management should provide independent financial analysis, sound operational execution, and candid advice—even when that advice is politically inconvenient.
The City Manager must serve the institution and its residents, not the political ambitions of those temporarily occupying elected office.
The Bills Are Coming Due
While Riverside searches for another highly compensated executive, residents face the realities of municipal financial pressure.
During the development of its 2026–2028 budget, City staff proposed approximately $17.95 million in cost reductions for fiscal year 2026–27 and $22.27 million for the following year across the General Fund and Measure Z.
Residents are also dealing with utility rate increases, infrastructure needs, and continuing questions about the financial sustainability of municipal services.
Not every rate increase or budget reduction can fairly be blamed on a City Manager. Infrastructure costs, inflation, regulatory obligations, and economic conditions are real.
But that is precisely why experienced financial leadership matters.
When City Hall faces difficult spending choices, the public deserves a clear accounting of executive compensation, consulting fees, severance obligations, political initiatives, and administrative overhead before essential services become the next targets for reductions.
Before City Hall asks residents to pay more or accept less, it should demonstrate that its own executive leadership and spending practices meet the same standard of financial discipline.
We Need a Business Model, Not Another Bureaucratic Recruitment
The City Manager position is an established part of Riverside’s municipal government. Eliminating the title is not necessary to reform how the City selects and compensates its leadership.
What Riverside needs is a fundamentally different approach.
I propose seven reforms:
- Open executive recruitment to qualified private-sector leaders. Evaluate proven financial, operational, organizational, and strategic accomplishments—not merely years spent in government.
- Require fully transparent compensation. Publish salary, benefits, retirement contributions, leave provisions, allowances, and potential separation costs before approving an employment agreement.
- Eliminate excessive golden parachutes. Make executive severance modest, clearly justified, and genuinely protective of taxpayer interests.
- Establish measurable performance requirements. Include reserve targets, expenditure management, infrastructure delivery, organizational effectiveness, and economic development returns.
- Build internal succession planning. Develop qualified executives within City Hall so every departure does not automatically produce another interim appointment and expensive nationwide search.
- Review executive recruiters and consultants. Disclose their fees, recruitment outcomes, guarantees, and any business relationships that could present conflicts of interest.
- Hold the Mayor and City Council accountable. Require elected officials to publicly explain the costs and measurable results of their executive hiring decisions.
The private sector does not have a monopoly on effective management, and government has responsibilities that businesses do not. But financial discipline, succession planning, performance measurement, and executive accountability are universal leadership principles.
Riverside should embrace them.
Stop the Revolving Door Before Signing Another Contract
Riverside residents are being invited to participate in the City Manager recruitment process.
Good.
But public participation should extend far beyond identifying desirable personality traits or leadership characteristics.
Residents should demand answers about previous recruitment costs, severance agreements, executive turnover, compensation practices, performance evaluations, and the financial outcomes achieved under previous administrations.
The City Council should explain why the municipal-experience requirement is necessary and whether it is willing to consider proven private-sector executives.
Most importantly, the Mayor and City Council must recognize that they—not executive recruiters, consultants, or departing administrators—are ultimately responsible for these hiring decisions.
Riverside does not need another executive whose greatest qualification is knowing how to navigate the politics of City Hall.
We need someone capable of rebuilding financial discipline, protecting taxpayer resources, improving government operations, strengthening infrastructure, and establishing a culture where results matter more than appearances.
And we need elected officials with the judgment and courage to support that kind of leadership.
Riverside should lead California in reforming municipal executive recruitment and compensation—not continue financing a revolving door that rewards career mobility while shifting the costs of leadership turnover onto taxpayers.
Before the next contract is signed, the public deserves more than another expensive promise.
We deserve accountability. We deserve results. And we deserve leadership that puts Riverside first.
This is the first installment in a Riverside Accountability Project investigation into charter officer recruitment, executive compensation, severance agreements, financial performance, and government accountability. Future installments will examine Riverside’s previous City Managers, their compensation and separation agreements, executive-search expenditures, and the measurable financial outcomes of their tenures.
Sources and supporting records
- City of Riverside — 2026 City Manager job announcement
- Riverside City Council — 2022 executive recruitment agreement, Item 22-2091
- City Manager Futrell’s separation and severance — Los Angeles Times
- Riverside City Council — June 16, 2026, City Attorney appointment and compensation
- California Attorney General — Bell public compensation investigation
- California State Auditor — City of Vernon Audit 2011-131
- Riverside FY 2026–2028 budget documentation
Another glaring omission in how our city operates in valuing community input. Community involvement is not just token “meetings” where 6 people show up (often the same people each time). Riverside has a wealth of social capital but over the years it has become repeatably frustrating when the public lobbies and their concerns are ignored. Especially with no explanation – examples: city main library; RTRP project; city commission interface; Quality Inn homeless grant issue; and more. Public is discouraged from participating or even being informed. We need to change the culture to an informed and non apathetic community that feels listened to and valued as a participant in city decision making.
Keith –
You either do not know what is REALLY going on behind the scenes in Riverside — or you do, and you are covering for them.
In either case, you should consider reserving your opinions until after the court cases reveal all the facts.
And by the way, Mike is a fiscal conservative, business executive from the private sector, a military leader, an a government official (elected and appointed), and a litigator who brought Riverside out of the red into the black almost immediately after arriving.
As you likely know by now, you got it all wrong when you attacked me in this “neighborhood news” spewing misinformation and hate that caused great harm nationally to me, my company, and my family. Undue damage from which I will likely never recover. You stated you were just doing what staff inside City Hall tod you to but you failed to check the facts forst — and now heads are rolling but you have yet to apologize for the damage you caused.
Now, your column attacks Mike Futrell under the guise of taxpayer advocacy.
Whom, exactly, are you protecting now? Staff still?
Mike is a fiscal conservative who helped take Riverside from red to black. The City’s FY 2023–24 financials showed revenues exceeding expenses by nearly $34 million. In three years, he brought $4.3 billion in investment to Riverside. The article demands financial discipline and measurable results, yet omits the fact-based, proven, quantified results Mike delivered.
Scrutinize the separation agreement if you want. But calling a negotiated payment a “golden parachute” doesn’t prove mismanagement. If you’re going to attempt to condemn Mike’s performance, address his record—not unrelated costs, loaded labels, and comparisons to scandals you not admit did not happen.
Facts matter. Truth matters.
Either do not know what is REALLY going on behind the scenes in Riverside — or you do, and you are covering for them. I will keep what shred of respect I have left for you and pretend you do not know.
— Susan Freeman, CEO | Founder
You are correct FACTs matter as does the truth. I will gladly publish the documents I have received from the FOI requests.
Your reputation and actions are a matter of public record.
The current financial condition of Riverside is NOT sound and the overspending on Angel Investments, creating social media influencers is also a matter of fact.
I appreciate your following of my blog site. I am still waiting on the slow drip of FOI documents and since you asked will write a blog directly his tenure in Riverside.