Council picks Dale as new city manager
CALEXICO — The Calexico Council is looking to get the city back on track financially and it believes David Dale is the person to do it.
During a regular council meeting Wednesday, Council here unanimously voted to make Dale the permanent city manager — he’d been serving as interim since former city manager Armando Villa stepped down in December.
Born in Denmark in 1971, but raised in San Diego, Dale moved to the Imperial Valley in 1989 when he was hired as a civil engineer by The Holt Group.
“David Dale will be an excellent city manager for the city of Calexico,” Calexico Mayor Maritza Hurtado said. “The city Council is ready to support him and maintain the team effort we’ve had for a while and he’s just going to make this team stronger.”
He mirrored those same comments.
“It’s encouraging, not only to me, but to the entire community that we have a council that is of one mind,” Dale said.
While he may be officially on the job these past few days, he’s already been working to move the city far away from previous rampant spending, depleted reserves and decreasing tax revenue.
To do so, he’s tackling the biggest issue the city is currently facing — an unbalanced budget.
“My No. 1 priority is getting the budget in line,” he said. “That’s the No. 1 goal, everything else is secondary.”
However, it’s not the only goal.
“I’m going to do my best to work for the residents in their best interests,” he said.