Chico’s public works director leaving role
CHICO >> After nearly six years as Chico’s Public Works Engineering Director, Brendan Ottoboni is stepping away from the position.
Ottoboni joined the city in February 2015 as Public Works Manager before becoming the Interim Senior Civil Engineer and the Acting Public Works Engineering Director before being given the title of official director in November 2015.
Ottoboni, who informed the city of his decision earlier this month, said Thursday he would be
leaving his position and returning to work in the private engineering sector. He added he still has plans to continue working on occasional projects for the city.
“I’ve given it everything I’ve got. I know leaving here, I can leave with my head held high,” Ottoboni said. “I’ve done everything I can to the best of my abilities. We’ve really achieved some good things here, so I’m proud of this.”
Looking back over the decision to leave, Ottoboni said the relationships he formed over his time with the city will be one of the things he misses most.
“I’ve built a lot of close relationships both internally with my department but also in the community. That element is definitely the hardest — the relationship aspect,” Ottoboni said. “It’s gonna be different. I’m not going to have the same level of relationships with the people, but I’m really excited about the new opportunity I’m getting into it.”
In his span of working for the city, Ottoboni said the Public Works Department has been able to raise $96 million in grants.
“From a statistical standpoint, I think that that kind of sums up a lot of the success we’ve had as a team,” Ottoboni said. “I continue to give tremendous kudos to our folks here at the city, especially this group of engineering people. They continue to rise to the occasion because it can take years of work to get these projects through. The consistency of integrity, hard work and dedication by everyone shows, and I think that’s why we’ve gotten, such positive feedback over the years from the community.”
Of the projects he had a hand in that stand out, Ottoboni noted the Capital Improvements Projects program, the widening of both Bruce and Cohasset roada, and The Esplanade Safety Project.
“We’ve taken on some kind of legacy type of projects that no one really in the past wanted to touch or see through to fruition,” Ottoboni said. “But we took it on because it was the right thing to do and we didn’t just do the easy thing, we did the right thing for the community.”
Ottoboni said he gave his notice to the city in early August. In turn, the advance notice will help provide time for a yet to be announced interim public works director to overlap with Ottoboni before his final day on Sept. 10, City Manager Mark Orme said.
“Brendan played a key role over Public Works Engineering. There’s been a lot of activity in Public Works Engineering and so there’s going to continue to be a lot of work,” Orme said. “In essence what happens is, I’m going to have to fill that position. One of the things that’s vitally important for the city is to have a team that can get the job done.”
Orme said the city will be going through the recruitment process in order to fill Ottoboni’s role. He added hiring will be conducted by a professional recruiter.
“We’re very hopeful that we will have some great applicants and fill that role out once the recruitments said and done,” Orme said. “One of the things that I’ve become accustomed to in the local government is that change is inevitable. That’s just the norm and unfortunately, because of the circumstances that our city has found itself in over the past number of years, there’s just been a real lack of being able to compete with the market.”
Orme said Ottoboni’s work has been admired by the city, from indexing conditions of pavement throughout the city following the Camp Fire to The Esplanade reconstruction project.
“He’s really been a vital asset to the city, overseeing so much of the capital improvements that we’ve finally been able to get off the ground and he’s been on the front end of what we will see coming forward down the road,” Orme said. “I could go down a list a mile long of the success stories that he’s been a part of. He was a pivotal member of the team.”
Ottoboni’s last day as the city’s Public Works Engineering director will Sept. 10.
Orme said the interim Public Works Engineering director will be announced un an unspecified day next week followed along with a job positing for a permanent replacement.