Dear Richmond City Council:

I hereby provide my resignation as the City Manager of City of Richmond, effective December 1, 2021.

When I was hired as the City's first female City Manager in January 2020, none of us could have known the challenges of a world pandemic and the impacts our Richmond community would face. Still, we managed the COVID-19 pandemic response, keeping staff and community safe, transitioning to new ways of doing business, improving our on-line services, and making City services available to those most in need during pandemic. We also navigated for several months the community's understandably emotional response to the police shootings in other parts of the nation, demonstrating that the City of Richmond could and would do better. Our local newspaper headlines were stories of success and not failure to hear the voices of our dynamic and diverse Richmond community.

As I conclude my second year as the City Manager of Richmond, I am proud of my accomplishments for the City of Richmond, including:

• The City's recently-adopted, multi-year labor agreements providing long-awaited wage increases for close to half of the City Staff.
• Two (2) balanced budgets.
• Recruiting new and talented department directors (e.g. Human Resources, Public Works, Fire Chief, Police Chief) and other key management staff.
• Initiating and working with the City Council to develop a major reorganization of City Departments to improve the quality and efficiency of City services and staff- level projects.
• Initiating a thoughtful process to ultimately obtain long-term fiscal sustainability to the Richmond community.
• Strategic incorporation of the initial ARPA funding in the City's budget to expand services to the most vulnerable and initiating a community needs assessment to assist the City Council in determining how best to invest more than $10 million of remaining ARPA funds.

The City staff and I have tackled these and many other projects with the objective of making sure that residents and businesses are given every opportunity to thrive in this dynamic, diverse community. I have an infinite amount of respect for our staff and pride in my role in leading such an outstanding group of public servants. I thank them for their dedication and support. Finally, I thank the Mayor and City Council for giving me the opportunity to serve the City of Richmond these past two years.

Thank you, Laura Snideman

CC           Human Resources
City Attorney’s Office

From: Laura Snideman <LSnideman@ci.richmond.ca.us>
Sent: Monday, November 22, 2021 8:32 PM
Cc: Teresa Stricker <teresa_stricker@ci.richmond.ca.us>; Marc Fox <Marc_Fox@ci.richmond.ca.us>; Heather McLaughlin <Heather_McLaughlin@ci.richmond.ca.us>; Shasa Curl <Shasa_Curl@ci.richmond.ca.us>
Subject: Departure statement and resignation letter

Dear Council:

While this is being sent a bit early, in support of an expedited transition, attached is my resignation letter and our joint statement shown below. They can be released on Wednesday.  In addition, I am appointing Shasa Curl as Acting City Manager for most purposes, including your meeting on Tuesday night, until the council takes the final steps to appoint an Interim City Manager starting December 2.  As contemplated, in order to assure a smooth transition, I will address any outstanding items requiring my attention such as any briefings or projects that Shasa is interested in having my help on, finalizing a couple of annual reviews as the work was done under my oversight, or addressing any unexpected items.  Furthermore, it seems I will have the opportunity to say my final thank you and farewell in person in court on December 1. 

In the meantime, I hope you all have a beautiful and blessed Thanksgiving.

Until next week,
Laura

Laura Snideman
City Manager, Richmond CA
450 Civic Center Plaza
Richmond, CA  94804
http://www.ci.richmond.ca.us/
lsnideman@ci.richmond.ca.us
( 510-620-6512