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Public Services Director Ambo Placed on Administrative Leaveby Jack McCurdyBruce Ambo, Morro Bay's city public services director, one of the most prominent and powerful figures in City Hall, who has been involved in a number of highly controversial city projects since his appointment in 2002, has been placed on paid administrative leave pending an investigation, the City Council was informed by city staff on Friday, Feb. 19. The most recent issue that drew community attention was a failed attempt led by Ambo to establish a contentious city redevelopment agency last year. Ambo was suspended after an incident in the water section of the public services department, which he heads, according to an informed source in the city. A female employee reported to Ambo that her supervisor had been using the employee's computer, apparently without permission, and had lost well tests and programs, the source reported. The city has wells in the Chorro Valley that have provided water for residents in the area, and ongoing tests have found contamination in the water, resulting in restrictions by state agencies and protests by users of the water in that area. The computer incident was reported to Ambo by that employee, the source said, but it could not be determined whether he took steps to investigate it. However, he did terminate the supervisor, the source said. No other information was available. The city refused to provide any details on the reason for his suspension on grounds it is a personnel matter. City manager Andrea Lueker, when asked for details, said in an email that "the majority of personnel matters are confidential, including the specifics of any investigation." She was asked if the investigation was being conducted internally or by an outside party, but she has not respond. Late last year, before Ambo's routine job performance review, a number of residents urged some City Council members to consider terminating Ambo because of their criticisms of his record as public services director extending back several years. But his employment was extended in December by Lueker, who, as city manager, has authority over such personnel decisions. Lueker did provide the city job description for the director's position, showing the occupant has wide-ranging responsibilities for some of the most important services and development decisions in the city. It states his job, under administrative direction of the city manager, is to "plan, organize, and direct the activities of the public services department that includes engineering and building inspection, public works, planning and environmental review; and to do related work as required." Specifically, he plans, organizes, directs the activities and works of the various divisions of the department, including the design and construction of streets, water, and wastewater treatment systems, drainage structures, and other public works. Before joining the city on Dec. 30, 2002, Ambo was community development director for the city of Grover Beach from 2001 until he came to Morro Bay, according to an article in the Tribune newspaper. Before that he was a project manager in redevelopment for the city of Reno, Nevada, from 1995 to 2001, according to the Reno Gazette-Journal. Ambo led the city staff's effort last summer to convince the City Council to establish a redevelopment program under the city to encourage redevelopment of certain properties throughout the community, based on whether they would be labeled as "blighted." (See "Morro Bay Redevelopment Study" in August 2009 Issue) Critics argued the redevelopment plan contained no reasonable criteria for such designations and appeared to be a way to encourage developers to take advantage of people with older properties by making them vulnerable to takeover. But perhaps the most serious flaw in the redevelopment proposal was that it failed to explain how it would operate, such as what process would be followed to carry out the redevelopment plan that would ultimately be decided on by the Council. In addition, although it was claimed by city staff and a consultant that redevelopment would produce significant city revenues over its 45-year life span, the amount the city might receive appeared to be highly speculative. Redevelopment caught the attention of residents after the City Council very late during the night of July 13 rejected the strong urging of Ambo, other city staff and Mayor Janice Peters to authorize a redevelopment agency starting in 2009-2010. The Council balked after members were informed with documentation how the staff, mainly under Ambo's direction, had put out unclear, confusing and sometimes erroneous information about city meetings on redevelopment, including the absence of any mention in public notices about the public hearing that was held that very night. Ambo never commented on the asserted failure to adequately inform residents about the issue and never publicly accepted any responsibility. At that meeting, the Council delayed a decision for a month to give residents more time to become familiar with the redevelopment proposal. A campaign by some residents then got under way to inform the community about what redevelopment could mean to homeowners and to alert them about the date of the next Council meeting where a decision could be made. Flyers explaining the potential threat from redevelopment were delivered door to door and emails and phone calls were circulated as fears in the community began to spread that the redevelopment agency would lead to homes designated as blighted being condemned and taken from owners through the power of eminent domain. Council members denied they would support such action, but no one could deny that some future Councils might employ eminent domain because they would have the authority if a redevelopment agency were formed. At the Aug. 10 meeting, before a standing-room-only audience in Vets Hall and after numerous speakers voiced strong opposition, the redevelopment plan was blocked by the Council with Carla Borchard, Noah Smukler and Betty Winholtz voting to table it, and Peters and Rick Grantham voting to form a redevelopment agency. A few weeks later, the whole project was dropped by the Council. It represented a major setback for Ambo, who, along with Lueker, had convinced the Council to spend a reported $60,000 to $80,000 to prepare for creation of the redevelopment agency. Most, if not all, of the money was expended without the project going forward, it was understood. A much longer-running and more disputed issue under Ambo's tutelage has been the city's water supply, which has grown steadily more precarious over the past 15 years to the point where reliability is in question. Wells in the Chorro Valley and the Morro Basin near Morro Bay High School, which the city has traditionally relied on for water, have suffered contamination and restrictions on use. And the state water supply, which began to be delivered to Morro Bay in 1997 and which the city now relies on for 90% of its water, is being cut back by the state due to its own statewide water supplies being threatened. As a result, the city called an emergency as of last Jan. 1 and imposed mandatory conservation measures. Some think those measures fail to reflect the serious uncertainty of the availability of city water now and probably in the future. Linked to the new insecurity over water is the city's decrepit sewage system, which has been blamed by some residents for contaminating the city's wells and limiting use of their water without channeling it through the city's desalination plant for cleansing, which is a costly process for the city to incur at a time when its budget revenues are falling short of needs for community services. For more detailed information about the plight of the city's water supply since Ambo became public services director seven years ago, please see "Morro Bay's Precarious Water Supply" by Kari Olsen in this issue of the Journal.
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