Novato’s recently appointed interim finance manager, Rickey Manbahal, was fired from his previous job as the city of Hawthorne’s finance chief after failing to disclose a loan of public funds he received from the city years earlier.
In addition to the loan, Manbahal had previously admitted to the Hawthorne City Council in 2015 that he and a former city manager misled the council about the city’s financial status by presenting balanced budgets while quietly using reserve funds to cover multi-million deficits.
Reached Monday, Novato Mayor Eric Lucan said he was aware that news articles on Manbahal’s past employment were circulating, but said he is unaware of the details of Manbahal’s past controversies. The council is not charged with appointing the finance manager, interim or otherwise; that decision is the city manager’s, Lucan said.
“We’ve got excellent city staff and a (Human Resources) Department that thoroughly vets all candidates for all city positions,” Lucan said. “I fully trust them with those hiring decisions. The only hiring decision that the council makes is that of a city manager.”
Attempts to contact Manbahal on Monday were unsuccessful. Manbahal had been serving as a financial consultant for Novato for nearly a year before taking the role as interim finance manager this month. The appointment was made as the city seeks candidates for a permanent replacement after the city’s former financial chief Tony Clark left last year.
As of Monday, Manbahal was not a candidate for the permanent position, although a list of candidates had yet to be provided to the city manager’s office, city officials said.
Novato City Manager Regan Candelario said the city was well aware of Manbahal’s past after performing background checks and conducting interviews with former colleagues. Candelario said he was satisfied with the information the city received.
“We’ve had our own experience with Rickey over the year,” Candelario said. “He’s been very helpful in getting us caught up with the finance department. There is a litany of things he has been able to support Novato with and get up to date.”
In an open letter in May 2018, Hawthorne city administrators stated they were only made aware in March of the $25,000 loan Manbahal received in 2014. The loan was made under the direction of former Hawthorne city manager Michael Goodson, who was later fired in 2015 after controversies surrounding city finances.
“(The loan) is further evidence that the city council was just in terminating Mr. Goodson as the city manager in 2015,” the letter states regarding the loan.
According a 2018 article by the Daily Breeze newspaper, the loan agreement did not require Manbahal to pay the loan back in cash. Instead, Hawthorne payroll staff had been directed to deduct sick and administrative leave time from Manbahal’s future paychecks.
The deductions did not add up to $25,000, as administrative leave has no cash value, according to the newspaper. A third-party investigation completed in May 2018 stated that Manbahal also never tracked his repayments and had not paid it back as of May 2018, the newspaper reported.
Following a closed session meeting on May 18, 2018, the Hawthorne City Council voted to fire Manbahal and ordered the city attorney to draft a loan repayment agreement. The agreement required Manbahal to repay the loan by August 2018 in three payments. Hawthorne City Attorney Russell Miyahira wrote in an email on Monday that Manbahal repaid the loan “in a timely manner.”
Tim O’Connor, vice chairman of the Novato Citizens Finance Advisory and Oversight Committee, said he has “complete confidence in the city’s ability to screen and hire qualified candidates.”
“I have had no interactions with Mr. Manbahal outside of our Citizens Finance meetings, and very minimal interactions at those meetings,” O’Connor wrote in an email. “On a whole however, the meetings we have had with staff this year have been productive, informative and extremely constructive.”
