City Manager Oliver Chi Takes the Helm in Santa Monica’s Era of Transition

Oliver, you come to your new position as City Manager of Santa Monica after holding the same role at the City of Irvine. What motivated your decision that the time was right to make this move?

Well, I don’t know if there’s ever a “right” time to take a new job. At home, my wife and I had a lot of discussions. She said, “I thought Irvine was our last move…what are we doing going to Santa Monica?”

But for me, throughout my career in local government, I’ve always had this notion that I’d like a chance to work in Santa Monica one day. You never quite know if that kind of aspiration will come to pass. I actually thought I would finish my career in Irvine…until I got a call from the recruiter. Santa Monica has always been personal for me. My wife and I basically grew up on the Promenade and the Pier when we were dating as college students at UCLA. Back then, twenty bucks could buy you a terrific night out in Santa Monica. 

Honestly, I fell into local government by accident. I’d been working for the California State Legislature for a while—important work, but I knew it wasn’t what I wanted to do in the long term. I was getting ready to apply to law school when I took what I thought would be a temporary summer job with a city. That job turned into a career I’ve become incredibly passionate about.

Throughout that career, I’ve followed what’s happening in Santa Monica closely—and I’ve probably applied here four or five times. This has always been a city that pursues what’s possible. I remember reading about Lamont Ewell’s early work when he came from San Diego, and I’ve long admired leaders like Rod Gould, who’s been a mentor, and Rick Cole, whom I almost worked for a couple of times…Santa Monica is a place where so many important civic ideas have been tested and realized. 

I don’t know if it was the perfect time to leave Irvine, but I do hope this will be the capstone of my career. A place where I can really spend time and energy in helping address challenges and opportunities ahead.

In Irvine, you prioritized major developments such as the Great Park and Gateway Village. How does that inform your approach to present challenges in Santa Monica?

Whenever I start in a new organization, I spend a lot of time observing and listening, taking as many meetings as I can, talking with staff, and engaging with community stakeholders. It’s not just my experience in Irvine; it’s really the sum of everything I’ve done in local government. You work on different projects, encounter different crises, and over time, you hope those experiences give you the perspective needed for the moment a city is in.

What I’ve observed in Santa Monica over the past five to seven years—perhaps even before COVID, but certainly during it—is that the city has gone through a series of successive traumas. My initial observation, which I’d now call an opinion, is that Santa Monica feels like it’s been knocked down. 

We’ve been knocked flat, and the organization is still struggling to get up… As I’ve talked with staff and stakeholders, I’ve heard over and over that while everyone had to respond to COVID, that response created deep institutional trauma. The civil unrest in May 2020 was another major inflection point. Those events compounded each other, and the organization never fully recovered.

Given a healthy amount of discussion about turnover within City Hall’s leadership of your new city, what have you observed as impacts on your ability to manage since arriving?

We’ve had significant leadership turnover over the last five to seven years. My assistant, Sandra Santiago, who’s worked here for 30 years, told me I’m the 12th city manager she’s served under, and the 6th in just the past five years. That kind of churn matters. An organization’s ability to execute depends on steady leadership, and when that consistency breaks down, so does confidence.

We have massive issues to address in Santa Monica, as well as opportunities like the park that you mentioned. There are budgetary issues, but at the same time, we’re facing big structural challenges: a persistent budget deficit, a local economy under stress, and what I’d describe as a pervasive sense of disorder. 

Our commercial office vacancy rate is around 30 percent—and if you count tenants who’ve walked away from leases, it’s closer to 35 or 40 percent. Retail vacancies are roughly 17 percent, the highest in more than a decade. 

Elaborate on the impact such turnover is having. What might be done to address it?

There’s a real sense right now that, because of the disorder, people with access to capital are hesitant to invest in the city. That’s a problem—especially when we’re sitting on so many generational opportunities.

Take the redevelopment of the airport, for example. When else are you going to have 200 acres on the Westside to plan and develop? It’s an extraordinary opportunity, but at the moment, there’s no community consensus on what that future should look like. We have a few years before the end of 2028 to get that right, and we can’t waste them.

We have budgetary challenges, economic distress, and general disorder, coupled with the backdrop of opportunities over the next couple of years. The airport is one. In the next few years alone, the region will host the World Cup in 2026, the Super Bowl and NBA All-Star Game in 2027, and the Olympics in 2028. The question is: How do we position Santa Monica to meet that moment?

What I’ve observed so far is that we’ve been largely reactive. We respond to each crisis as it comes rather than operating from a clear, proactive game plan. The task now is to build that plan—to address today’s issues, prepare for tomorrow’s, and help the city get back on its feet. I believe the range of experiences I’ve had over my career lends itself to exactly this kind of challenge.

Assuming that a City Manager’s ability to lead depends on support from a majority of the City Council, presently, what consensus on behalf of the Council affords you the flexibility to manage?

I’m genuinely encouraged by our political leadership. During my first couple of months, I spent time listening, observing, and forming impressions. Then, as an executive team, we stepped back and spent time offsite to put together a plan—a shared understanding of what we need to do right now.

The overarching principle we’ve agreed on is that we must be cohesive as a leadership team. We have to bring clarity and purpose to the organization. Clarity about why we come to work every day and what we’re trying to accomplish in this moment. When you dig into it, I come from Orange County, where a lot of folks said, “Why would you want to go to that hellhole in Santa Monica? It's a cesspool of awfulness?” But when you get here and actually walk around, yes, you see disorder, but it’s not insurmountable. The issues we face are fixable. Santa Monica is still one of the most extraordinary cities on the planet. What’s needed now isn’t to rebuild the city—it’s to realign our focus, our energy, and our sense of shared mission.

The trauma of the last five to seven years resulted in an organization that might feel like the City doesn't care about its workforce. Instead of living for a mission, for a purpose of why…we come to work every day, and there's this pervasive sense that we're coming to work just to collect a paycheck and do what we have to do day-to-day. We need to change that narrative. This organization exists to cultivate and shape a resilient, inclusive, and livable city. To do that, we have to stabilize our foundation, strengthen morale, and make the city functional again.

That starts with how we operate internally. We have to become more cohesive, eliminate internal politics, replace confusion with clarity, and rebuild trust. Our executive team has aligned around a core set of behavioral values: a team orientation built on four principles.

We've centered on a game plan that identifies, at its core, a set of behavioral values that the Executive Team has developed, which we're all 100 percent aligned with at this moment. First and foremost, we will lead and serve with humility—consistently putting the needs of the team and the community above personal ambition, especially at the executive level.

Emphasizing humility as the first of your four leadership values, expand on that.

A lack of humility is often what allows corrosive, destructive behaviors to take root in an organization. When people start prioritizing their own ambitions over the mission or the team, that energy bleeds into everything else. So, first and foremost, we’re going to work in a way where the needs of the whole outweigh any individual self-interest.

The second value is integrity. We have to be reliable. What we say has to mean something. That is when you give your word, people can take it at face value. If you commit to doing something, the rest of the team should be able to count on you to do your part. 

Third is motivation, which for us is really about technical competency. Skilled, motivated people working together can achieve great things. Wherever you sit in the organization, you have to stay obsessive about mastering your role—understanding what’s possible and continually getting better at it.

Lastly, we’ve identified care as the fourth value. Every interaction matters. Your words and your actions have an impact—so choose the ones that pull people together, not the ones that drive them apart.

Collectively, these four principles—humility, integrity, motivation, and care—are the foundation of our values-based operating model. If we’re going to execute our realignment plan, it has to start here, with how we lead and how we treat each other.

To follow up, what does your Realignment Plan entail? What are your key priorities?

Our plan focuses on five key strategic priorities, starting with the organization itself. We have to build greater health inside City Hall—strengthen morale, rebuild internal capacity, and give staff the tools to execute effectively again. The City has reorganized and cut back repeatedly in recent years to manage budget pressures, but those reductions have also weakened our ability to deliver. Now’s the time to rebuild capacity and to invest strategically in the people and systems that make everything else work.

Second, we need to restore order. That means focusing resources: social services, law enforcement, and capital improvements—where disorder is most visible: our downtown core. Nearly half of our homeless service calls and more than a third of all police calls occur in that small area between Ocean Avenue and Lincoln Boulevard. We haven’t aligned our response across departments, and that has to change.

Revitalizing downtown is also central to reigniting economic growth. We’re developing a work plan that connects safety, cleanliness, and infrastructure investment with new opportunities for business, housing, and activation. Every successful downtown revival has involved adding more people, more density, and energy...and we’re exploring how policy can support that responsibly.

The full Realignment Plan will go before the City Council and the community on October 28. What might stakeholders expect to result?

Well, just to add, we’re also tackling our structural deficit head-on. Within 24 months, our goal is to have a balanced operating budget. That will require near-term investments to modernize operations, but it’s essential if we want a sustainable foundation.

We’re also looking ahead to the decade’s major events—the World Cup in 2026, the Super Bowl and NBA All-Star Game in 2027, and the Olympics in 2028. Those are huge opportunities to showcase Santa Monica’s recovery and vitality. If we clean up and reactivate downtown now, we can position the city to meet that moment at full strength.

What gives me optimism is that our City Council understands the urgency and is united around this direction. Yes, the full Realignment Plan will go before the Council and community on October 28, and I’m confident we’re ready to move from diagnosis to execution.

For years, many other cities have held the city of Santa Monica on a pedestal—known for its high standards, but also for being a challenging place for welcoming outside investment. Today, what message do you want to send regarding the latter about doing business in Santa Monica?

What I’ve found in my career is that organizations get good at what they have to get good at. For the last 20 or 30 years, Santa Monica was an epicenter of opportunity—everyone wanted to be here. The challenge of that period was managing the impacts of enormous demand and investment. When you have that much capital trying to enter a community, you naturally become good at regulating. You make sure development aligns with community values. In some cases, we even got too good at it.

But that’s not the moment we’re in anymore. Today, we have to get good at responding to the moment by creating conditions for responsible growth and economic vitality. And honestly, things are happening in Santa Monica right now that the rest of the state could learn from. When I first arrived, I met with our planning team about a few major projects: 200- and 300-unit apartment buildings. I asked, “When’s the CUP hearing?” and they said, “We don’t do that here. If a project complies with the General Plan and Housing Element, it’s approved administratively.” I did a double-take...that’s remarkable. This community, and the councils that came before, deserve tremendous credit for streamlining our entitlement process.

Where we still have work to do is on the building side. The ability to move from concept to construction. We need to get stronger at saying yes, faster, once a project meets our standards. If someone’s ready to invest, we should be ready to help them execute and bring their vision to life. Santa Monica is a high-touch community with strong opinions, and that’s part of its DNA. 

But in that kind of environment, leadership matters even more. When decision-makers hesitate or turnover is high, accountability erodes. Too often, internal processes are designed to protect against criticism rather than deliver results. My goal is to change that and to build a culture that values clarity, responsibility, and action.

Having described Santa Monica as a “high-touch” community, one with strong opinions and an engaged public, what managerial reforms are likely to improve decision-making and build business confidence?

Internally, I’ve observed that many of our processes are designed to find consensus or provide internal protections, so that no one gets beaten up too badly. That mindset has created a permitting system where it can take six to nine months to secure a building permit for a simple commercial tenant improvement project. The issue isn’t complexity; it’s process. These are human-made systems, and humans can change them. We’re committed to doing that.

To the business community, and to those considering reinvestment in Santa Monica, I’d say: give us a chance to prove that we can do our part. The internal improvements we’re making will happen alongside our broader plan to reduce disorder. Right now, investor confidence is being held back by a perception that the city isn’t safe, and by legitimate questions about whether Santa Monica remains a good place to deploy capital given the existing regulatory and tax burdens.

All of that can change if we implement our plan effectively. Give us 60 to 90 days to show that the city can deliver on its responsibilities. To process permits more efficiently, to restore order, and to reestablish confidence. Santa Monica will come back. The only question is whether the city helps or hinders that recovery. We’re determined to be part of the solution.

Pivoting for context: Ezra Klein, in his book Abundance, argues that blue states and blue cities, like Santa Monica, have often failed to capitalize on their prosperity because of overregulation. Is your proposed Realignment Plan a response to that critique?

I’d say I haven’t thought about it exactly through that lens, but I do believe government has to be able to work. It has to be able to execute. Process matters, but process can’t be the result. What matters is the outcome. And those are the tangible improvements that people can see and feel. Our systems need to be reexamined. They’re human systems, built by people, and they can be changed by people. 

In a large organization like Santa Monica’s, you can see how easily regulations pile up over time as everyone tries to accommodate different interests. Without intention, you can end up with a structure that prevents anything from happening at all. On that note, a great case study is San Francisco. Not long ago, the headlines were about a “doom loop” and a “death spiral.” But look how quickly it’s begun to rebound, because the government there is focused on what it can control and deliver. 

For Santa Monica, that’s our challenge right now: to create an environment that people want to be part of and to design systems that let capable people contribute without unnecessary friction. None of it is conceptually difficult. You don’t need a Ph.D. to figure it out…but it’s hard work. We have to make the city safer, make it easier to get things done, and unlearn some of the habits we built during earlier eras of ‘abundance’.

That means leadership has to step up. We have to identify, clearly, what we’re going to do and then own the responsibility to do it. It’s not about dismantling regulation, but it’s really about aligning our systems with the moment we’re in and proving that government can still deliver.

Regarding San Francisco, you noted how the City has coalesced politically behind Mayor Lurie’s Common-Sense Reform agenda. Perhaps in a related form, will similar reforms or priorities be pursued in Santa Monica?

Different governance structures require different approaches, and that’s something we’re seeing play out across LA County right now. In San Francisco, the strong-mayor system allows for a direct shift: new mayor, new administration, clear mandate.

Santa Monica, by contrast, operates under a council–city manager form of government. That requires consensus among seven councilmembers, all of whom serve part-time. Policy direction from the council is critical, but it’s equally important that professional staff dare to identify the real issues, bring them forward, and propose solutions that match the council’s political will.

To me, it’s less about governance structure and more about people. Leadership matters. There are a thousand decisions I’ll make in a day that no one else will see—each one either reinforces the mission we’re pursuing or it doesn’t. Ultimately, the results will speak for themselves: we’ll either succeed or we won’t.

Lastly, assume it’s the first week of November and the Santa Monica City Council has acted on your realignment plan. What outcome are you expecting?

In a perfect world, there’s an enthusiastic embrace of the realignment plan. The council will have a clear sense of the issues and a shared commitment to addressing them. We’ve been refining the plan over the last several weeks, and I truly believe it’s spectacular.

Santa Monica faces serious challenges: our budget is strained, our local economy is disjointed, and public confidence in City Hall is low. There’s even a narrative out there that Santa Monica is in a “death spiral.” The way we change that is by implementing this plan. Step one is rebuilding capacity. That means balancing the budget, investing in the parts of the organization that enable execution, and strengthening our ability to deliver results.

By the end of November, if the plan is approved, people should start to feel the difference. Downtown should look and feel more orderly. There will be a growing sense of safety. A major capital project will be underway to upgrade downtown infrastructure, and an activation program will begin to draw people back. The business community will see that we’re serious about creating a city that works. We’ll also be realigning our social service models to support those same goals.

By the end of the year, residents should be asking, “What’s going on in Santa Monica? It feels different.” That’s the goal. Visible, measurable change that restores confidence in the city’s ability to perform.

Oliver, thank you. Let’s continue this conversation.