City of Vallejo poised to appoint Beverli Marshall as interim City Manager

VALLEJO – The Vallejo City Council will vote whether to hire former Glenwood Springs, Colorado, City Manager Beverli Marshall as the city’s interim city manager at the City Council meeting on Tuesday. 

Marshall would serve as the city’s interim city manager while the council continued to search for a permanent replacement for City Manager Mike Malone, who is retiring at the end of the month. 

Marshall said she only expects to hold the interim position for two or three months. “My goal, or the typical goal of any interim, is not to make any changes. It's to just stay the course and keep things running while council goes through its process.”

She has over 25 years experience working in city government, but her only city manager role was in Glenwood Springs, where she was asked to resign last year after only 6 months.

Glenwood Springs is a city of about 10,000 people, a small fraction of the size of Vallejo, and is known for its hot springs. Marshall was general manager for the Valley Sanitary District in Indio, California, for nearly four years prior to accepting the city manager job in Colorado.

Her civic experience dates back to 1997 when she worked as program administrator at the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation, a public corporation tasked with providing Alaskans with safe, affordable housing.

She then held executive positions with the San Francisco Housing Authority, the city of Berkeley, the city of Orinda, and wastewater districts in Richmond, Martinez, and Half Moon Bay. 

Marshall’s longest term of employment was for over six years as Business Services Manager for the West County Wastewater District in Richmond, California. Her second-longest term of employment was a little over four years with Berkeley, where she held three different positions in Parks and Recreation, the Housing Authority, and the Berkeley Public Library.

Several of Marshall’s other jobs lasted two years or less. Marshall said that was by design, because she wanted to learn as much as she could about the different functions of government. 

Marshall said that executives who come up a single path may have a favorite department and lack a broad understanding of other departments within municipal government. “I wanted to be a generalist,” she said. “I did not want to be a specialist.” 

Marshall said she spent 20 years living in the Bay Area and raised her children in Martinez. “I've always thought [Vallejo] was uniquely poised in the Bay Area. I think that it's kind of the perfect combination of location, amenities, weather and view. I'm familiar with the challenges, and I think that those challenges are not insurmountable,” she said.

Her brief stint as city manager of Glenwood Springs ended abruptly when the City Council decided to terminate her contract on Aug. 10.

The city was later sued to release the recording of the meeting because the council decided to draft a resignation letter for Marshall without a public vote, in violation of the state’s open meeting law. The City Council formally voted to accept her resignation during an Aug. 17 council meeting.

According to the Aspen Daily News, the recording showed that employees at Glenwood City Hall said they felt undervalued and mistreated by Marshall and the council was dissatisfied by her handling of a housing project.

Marshall’s “management style” and “communication style” were cited by Mayor Ingrid Wussow as reasons she was asked to resign.

Marshall did not want to comment on a personnel issue, but said that at no time did anyone from the Glenwood Springs city staff or council discuss or present any issues with her directly.

The staff report for Tuesday’s Vallejo City Council meeting recommends hiring Marshall as Interim City Manager “to allow the City Council the opportunity to complete the selection process for the new regular City Manager.”

It does not say anything about Marshall’s qualifications, except that she was selected after a recruitment and selection process. Her salary will be  $278,000 annually.

The City Council will continue to hold interviews for the permanent position on Friday. It will vote on Marshall’s appointment at the regular meeting on Tuesday, April 9 at City Hall at 7 p.m. Residents can attend either in person or on Zoom.

Editor's note — this story was updated to add quotes from Marshall and a correction to her employment history.