Carmel says farewell to the guy who saved them, plus: Gustafson!

One: Doug Schmitz was never going to be Carmel’s forever guy. He made that clear 13 months ago, when with one day’s notice, he came out of retirement, stepped into the city administrator’s job and helped right a badly listing Carmel City Hall.

Morale was in the toilet. There were lawsuits from ousted employees he had to deal with. One involved IT director Steve McInchak, who had been placed on administrative leave while he was investigated for computer hacking (an investigation that never bore fruit and probably helped lead to the poor guy’s untimely death from a heart attack). His suit was taken up by his family and it, along with one brought by fired Building Official/disabled military veteran John Hanson, needed to be settled. There was a Grand Jury investigation that had most everyone riled up.

Previous city administrator Jason Stilwell was a nice guy but he seemed to have his head buried in the sand, ostrich style. He was a policy wonk, not a people person, and he spent a lot of time in his office dealing with policy while a minion he brought with him from Southern California did the hatchet work.

And Stilwell came right after Rich Guillen, the city administrator who had a problem keeping his thoughts to himself when it came to the attractiveness of female underlings. Under his decade of leadership, the city made five settlements totaling in excess of $1 million with senior city employees, the Weekly reported in 2011.

Schmitz, who served as Carmel’s city administrator from 1983 to 1992 and went on to similar gigs in Oregon and Silicon Valley, came back. He planned to stay until the first quarter of next year, but fate intervened. As he told Carmel Mayor Jason Burnett in his Oct. 31 resignation letter, his doctor told him Oct. 30 he needed to immediately reduce his stress levels.

And the resignation was effective immediately.

Carmel City Council gathered Monday to formally accept the resignation, and to appoint an interim. The meeting had a funereal air, maybe because Schmitz wasn’t there to hear the good things people had to say.

He didn’t hide in his office, they said. He met with every single employee and listened to their gripes. He met with any resident who asked, and listened to their gripes too. He settled the lawsuits. And while Carmel still has its issues, he left the place in better shape than he found it.

“Doug loves this village, he loves the community and it’s because of that he was able to come out of retirement… and he did it at tremendous personal sacrifice,” Burnett says.

Public Safety Chief Mike Calhoun was appointed as the interim city administrator, until city council can recruit a professional interim city administrator. Sound confusing? It is. Calhoun will keep things moving until the city can find a retired city administrator willing to come in until the city can hire a full-time city administrator. It could take awhile.

I left Schmitz a voicemail, but didn’t hear back. For his stress level, that’s probably a great sign.

Two: And to think I was worried the leader of the Insane Clown Posse (as I like to call Howard Gustafson, board member of the Marina Coast Water District), had gone quiet on me. Would he remain quiet until I semi-departed for naps and beach walking next year? Had he gone zen, discovered his bliss, decided to finally get along with people?

Not even close, it seems. Thank you, baby Jesus.

On Oct. 23, the Surfrider Foundation sent email invitations to various public officials, Gustafson included, to a Nov. 4 screening of the documentary film Sand Wars, about the environmental impacts of sand mining.

The response that came from Gustafson’s email address read as follows: “Be serious, go fuck yourselves.” (And, the respondent added, “GO TRUMP. We’re coming.”)

As Monterey Bay Partisan blogger Royal Calkins pointed out in his report on the email, it’s possible Gustafson’s email was hacked. Possible, yet not probable. Like Calkins, I reached out to Howard too.

I can hardly wait for his response.

MARY DUAN is the Weekly’s editor. Reach her at mary@mcweekly.com or follow her at twitter.com/maryrduan