Yuba City Council creates three departments, appoints internal candidates as directors

Yuba City — The Yuba City Council voted to split the city’s combined development services and public works functions into three separate departments — Development Services, Public Works and Utilities — and introduced the three employees chosen to lead them.

Gina Roland, interim human resources director, told the council that the position overseeing the city’s development services, streets, water, sewer and storm drainage systems, engineering, fleet services, facilities maintenance, and both the water and wastewater treatment plants had been vacated in early June. “Therefore, staff recommends that the city council adopt a resolution creating a development services department, a public works department, and a utilities department,” Roland said. The council approved the recommendation by voice vote.

The resolution amends the city’s authorized positions and salary schedule, approves three new department director job descriptions and one deputy director job description, and authorizes the director of finance to amend the budget to implement the changes. The staff report cited a salary range for each new department head of $155,912 to $189,512 annually. Roland said there is no additional cost from the recommended actions because “sufficient funds have been included in the adopted budget for fiscal year 2025–2026.” She added staff expects to return to council on Aug. 19 with administrative “cleanup” items that are expected to be cost neutral, such as adding a support staff position for public works, reallocating positions to appropriate budget units, and additional title changes.

City Manager Robert Bindorff introduced the new directors and described them as internal promotions. He said the city did not recruit externally for the positions and praised the current staff for succession planning and promotion from within. “I think for these positions, what I’m looking forward to the most is having them together working as a system along with police and fire and HR and finance and our other departments,” Bindorff said, noting he had received positive feedback about the appointments.

Phil Marler has accepted the offer to become utilities director. “I am honored to step in the role as utilities director. I’ve been fortunate to work with an amazing group of people the last 19 years,” Marler said, adding his priorities will be “quality of service, leadership, and innovation.”

Doug Libby, the city’s deputy director of development services and public works prior to the reorganization, has accepted the development services director role; Bindorff noted Libby’s experience in planning and in Sutter County and Yuba City. Josh Wolf, a senior engineer promoted to public works director, said he began as an intern and worked his way up, thanked colleagues and family, and said he appreciated the council’s confidence in promoting from within.

Council members welcomed the appointments on the record and thanked the families of the new directors for their support. The council also acknowledged a closed session item taken earlier in the meeting on a liability claim filed by Christina Otono (claim number 2519Agency); no public comments were received on the closed-session item during the meeting and no action from the closed session was announced at the meeting’s close.

The council adjourned the special meeting after the recognition and introductions and invited attendees to refreshments.