Trenton’s economic director leaving for L.A.
TRENTON >> The city’s highly-touted housing and economic development director has taken her skills to a bigger stage.
Monique King-Viehland announced Monday that she will resign from her Trenton position on Oct. 23 to become the deputy executive director of the Los Angeles County Community Development Commission.
“I think it’s been a great 15 months here in the city,” King-Viehland said Monday. “I’m proud of a lot of things that we’ve done.”
Under her leadership, King-Viehland launched a vacant property initiative to deal with blight, and helped find suitors for the abandoned Bell Telephone building and Imani Community Church.
“We have at least 500plus units in the pipeline and over 300 jobs coming into the city in the next 18 to 24 months,” she said. “I feel good about the path that we’re on.”
King-Viehland will start her new job — a much larger operation — on Nov. 2.
In Los Angeles County, which is more 4,000 square miles compared to Trenton’s 7.6, KingViehland will oversee 174 workers and manage a $117-million budget, she said.
Her new boss, Sean Rogan, said the Community Development Commission advertised nationally in industry publications and that King-Viehland applied for the job.
“She was the most qualified individual,” the executive director said. “It was her education and skill set. We were looking for somebody that had a housing and economic development background and she fit that bill.”
King-Viehland, who earned a salary of $105,384, becomes the second director to resign from Mayor Eric Jackson’s administration in about a year. Law director David Minchello departed at the end of July.
The outgoing director said Diana Rogers, the city’s director of the division of economic development, will lead the department on an interim basis in her absence.
“I feel good about the direction that the department will go under acting director Diana Roger’s leadership,” King-Viehland said. “The mayor’s going to look for a replacement immediately. I think the mayor will choose someone else who will continue to take a department in the direction that it’s going.”
Jackson did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Jonah Pascucci, a city real estate agent with Richardson Commercial Realtors, called the loss of King-Viehland “significant for the city.”
“She is extremely knowledgable, driven and, most importantly for Trenton, thought outside the box,” Pascucci said. “She certainly was not afraid of doing the heavy lifting. She used her time to address the fundamental impediments to long-term and sustained growth for the capital city.”