PALMDALE – Palmdale City Manager Steve Williams announced Thursday that he will retire from the City at the end of 2011.
“I have very much enjoyed and appreciated my association with you over the past 24 years, 5 years as the City Manager,” Williams said in a written statement to City employees. “It is my goal over the next four months to provide as smooth a transition to new leadership as possible.”
Williams was appointed by the Council as City Manager of Palmdale in Oct. 2006. He began his career with the City in Sept. 1987 as Director of Public Works, and was promoted to Assistant City Manager in 2003. Over that time period, Palmdale’s population grew from 33,000 to its present 153,334, making it one of the fastest growing cities in the nation. To support this growth, Palmdale invested over $900 million in infrastructure, which has helped grow the City’s net assessed value to over $10 billion.
“Steve Williams and the City of Palmdale have demonstrated what cities can do given adequate resources through funding sources such as redevelopment,” said Palmdale Mayor Jim Ledford. “While we are facing the most challenging economy of our time, the cohesive and collaborative relationship between our City Council, City Manager and City staff enabled us to take action and implement strategies that made Palmdale an even more efficient and fiscally solid organization than before, and with a crime rate and an offering of programs and services that would be the envy of many cities.”
Williams, a registered civil engineer in California, has a bachelor of science degree in civil engineering from the University of Arizona, Tucson; and a master’s of public administration degree from California State University, Northridge. He attended an executive leadership program at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in July 2006.
