One of Modesto’s most pressing concerns missing from ad recruiting a new city manager

Modesto’s next city manager is expected to focus on growth and economic development, improving the manager’s relationship with the City Council, downtown development, fiscal responsibility, and assessing the organization.

That’s all spelled out in six paragraphs of more than 450 words in the recruiting brochure on the website of CPS HR Consulting, the Sacramento-based search firmed hired by the council to help it find its next top administrator. The brochure says these top priorities were “recently reaffirmed by the Mayor and City Council.”

But the brochure gives little attention to two big problems facing Modesto: homelessness and the lack of affordable housing.

The homeless get the only mention, and they are listed under the downtown development priority and get eight words: “Addressing ongoing homelessness challenges is a Council priority.” There is no mention of affordable housing.

Mayor Ted Brandvold said he and the council are not ignoring the homeless or affordable housing, which he said are interrelated, and he cited the sentence as proof. “Is that not an all-encompassing statement,” he asked. “It’s a nationwide situation, and it’s particularly bad in California.”

Modesto has supported Stanislaus County’s efforts to work on homelessness, and the issue has been a top concern for Councilwomen Kristi Ah You and Jenny Kenoyer.

The brochure also makes an overly ambitious forecast about how fast the city will grow.

“Modesto’s population is expected to nearly double over the next quarter-century,” according to the brochure. “With this growth comes the need to strategically plan for increasing demands related to infrastructure, transportation, and services.”

Brandvold tracked down the source of this growth projection on behalf of The Bee. He said he spoke with CPS HR Consulting, and the consultant told him it based the population forecast on information it used when it helped Modesto with a previous city manager search.

That search was about a decade ago and took place during a period of much different growth assumptions.

Brandvold said a council ad-hoc committee and the full council reviewed the draft of the brochure. He said one council member noted the population projections “and said something to the effect that it sounded like wishful thinking. And that’s where it stayed.”

“There were plenty of eyes on it, and we did not catch it,” Brandvold said about the inflated population figures. “I would not expect that (kind of growth). It’s just some numbers that did not get updated.”

So how fast could Modesto grow?

The University of the Pacific’s Center for Business & Policy Research provided a forecast in 2016 for the Stanislaus Council of Governments, a regional transportation planning agency, whose members include Modesto.

The center estimated Modesto’s population at 210,341 in 2015 and forecast it would increase to more than 268,000 by 2040 and nearly 313,000 by 2060.

This story was originally published February 21, 2018 at 3:58 PM with the headline "One of Modesto’s most pressing concerns missing from ad recruiting a new city manager."