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Published: Friday, Jul. 10, 2009

SLO City Manager Hampian to step down in January

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San Luis Obispo City Manager Ken Hampian is leaving his job after 20 years at City Hall and a total of 35 years in public service, but he refuses to call it retirement.

“It’s not retirement. It’s a new phase of my life,” the 57-year-old said.

His departure will be effective Jan. 1, but he plans to be flexible in case the city needs his services a little longer to train a new city manager.

Mayor Dave Romero cried when he heard the news.

“I cried first thing because Ken has been an outstanding manager besides being a really, really good friend,” he said.

Hampian said he will continue to live in San Luis Obispo, and plans to travel, write, teach, consult and more. He expects to continue to work as well, though perhaps at 70 percent instead of 120 percent, he said.

His departure announcement comes after the city approved a two-year budget. Hampian noted in his letter to the council that it can choose a new city manager in advance of the next two-year financial plan to be approved in July 2011.

“I strongly believe that handing the baton to a new city manager in January 2010 is the best way for me to care for, and honor, an organization that has given me so much,” he wrote.

Hampian has led the city through multiple two-year budget processes, where marathon goal-setting workshops are held in the community to guide the council in establishing a list of budget priorities.

He was at the helm when city voters passed Measure Y, the half-cent sales tax increase that officials credit with helping the city get through the current budget problems where sales and hotel taxes are down as are revenues from the state.

“I will be writing a book on municipal finance with colleagues that actually has a contract with Sonoma Press,” he said.

Hampian was selected by former City Manager John Dunn to serve as assistant city manager in 1989, after serving in city government in Fresno and Oxnard and working for the federal government. The City Council unanimously appointed him city manager in late 2000 to replace Dunn.

Hampian’s father died when he was 14, and he said he has worked nonstop ever since — including through his years attending Fresno State University. Hampian noted there has been a downside to the “pedal to the metal” approach he has taken to his work life.

“My other life experiences have been very limited and always deferred: travel, hobbies and unhurried family time,” he informed the council. “My wife hasn’t forgiven me for cutting our honeymoon short for returning to my very important job as a junior personnel analyst for the city of Fresno,” he said. “We’ve been married for 32 years, so we have gotten past that but it gives some idea of how I was.”

Hampian said he will not avail himself of the “retirement incentive” that the council approved on his recommendation. He would be entitled to $20,000 under that incentive if he were to take it, but he said it would have been inappropriate to receive it since he shepherded it through the city and recommended the council approve it.

He also said he will still have to work, because when he was younger, he cashed out of his federal retirement — “I was young.”

Hampian leaves a job where he makes more than $185,000 annually. He will get a pension through the Public Employees’ Retirement System, as other long-time employees do, but he is uncertain what percentage it will be.

Romero said Hampian’s tenure has been a period of developing good relationships with the employee unions, which agreed to no pay increases for the next fiscal year because of budget problems.

Romero, 80, plans for this to be his last term as mayor. He would leave office after the November 2010 election.

“My first reaction was selfish,” Romero said. “I asked him, ‘Can’t you wait until we can go out together?’ ”