Deputy City Manager Mario Giuliani named interim Benicia city manager

BENICIA – The Benicia City Council unanimously appointed Deputy City Manager Mario Giuliani as the city’s interim city manager at a special meeting on Monday night.

Giuliani will replace City Manager Erik Upson who is leaving on March 1 to take a position with a global security firm.

The city is still working on the details of Giuliani’s contract as Benicia’s interim city manager, a position which could lead to the more permanent city manager position after a trial period.

Giuliani has been Benicia’s deputy city manager for two years. Prior to that, he served as the city’s economic development manager for 13 years. Giuliani has lived in Benicia for 30 years, he has worked for Benicia, Walnut Creek and Vallejo parks departments and in the Benicia City attorney’s office.    

“So much of a City Manager’s job is about communication, both the ability to convey a message but also to listen.” Giuliani told the Vallejo Sun.

According to Giuliani, a key experience that will inform his approach as city manager is his work on Benicia’s sales tax measures. Measure C, a 1 cent sales tax to provide funding for essential city services, passed in 2014 but Measure R, which would have increased Benicia’s sales tax by three-quarters of a cent to fund roads, failed by a narrow margin in November.

“From that loss it's important to take stock in the listening piece in communication,” Giuliani said in an email. “There was clearly a sentiment in the community that I missed or failed to properly address. How one accepts accountability in defeat is also a necessary experience and a trait needed for one to be successful.”  

In the past, the City Council has filled the city manager position both by recruiting outside candidates as well as drawing from the city’s own ranks – as they did with Eric Upson, who was the city’s police chief prior to his appointment as city manager.

This time, considering the urgency of the city's current projects and the qualifications of several city staff members, the Council chose to select from internal candidates.

“There are about five or six people who work for the City of Benicia that are very highly qualified, so that’s a blessing and on the other hand… how do you pick one,” Councilmember Tom Campbell told the Vallejo Sun.

The city manager is a difficult position, because the right candidate “has to have good interpersonal and communication skills, but they also have to be able to look at a set of numbers and policies and say this is how the city is going to run,” Campbell said. “Most city managers are really good at one or the other, it’s rare that you see them excel at doing both.”

Upson said that the biggest challenge that the new City Manager will face is balancing revenue with the cost of repairing and upgrading Benicia’s aging infrastructure, such as roads and the city’s water supply and wastewater system. “Unfortunately, it’s this generation that will have to deal with these issues,” Upson said in an email. “The wheels are simply going to come off otherwise.”

Despite the upcoming challenges, Upson said that he feels that he is leaving the city in a good position with a talented staff and a council that works together to address the difficult problems.

Last month, Upson announced that he would retire from his position as city manager just over two years after he was appointed. He accepted an offer from a security firm that recruited him for an international position. He said that the opportunity to travel and a salary that will go farther as his children enter college were the factors that tipped the scales toward the new position.

“You may still see me around as I intend to stay on as a Volunteer Reserve Police Officer, working occasionally to support the Police Department,” Upson said in a statement.