By Clarence Cromwell
Monte Sereno City Manager Carolyn Lehr handed the City Council her resignation April 16 at a special closed session.
After nearly three years overseeing city business, Lehr plans to move to the Princeton, N.J., area with her husband and two sons. Her husband, Tony Scott, recently became director of information services for Bristol-Myers Squibb, a Fortune 200 pharmaceutical/cosmetic manufacturer in Princeton. He'd worked there several months as a consultant before accepting the job.
In a prepared statement, Lehr said she hopes to attend post-graduate classes at Rutgers University and will look for a management position in government.
Mayor Nancy Hobbs praised Lehr's performance.
"She's done an excellent job," Hobbs said, adding that Lehr redefined staff job descriptions, making the staff more efficient, and improved levels of training among city employees.
Lehr began her city government career 26 years ago as a Sacramento city parks employee during her high school years. She worked in the Sunnyvale Parks Department for three years, before and after earning her recreation administration degree at San Jose State University in 1974. She went on to serve three years as recreation superintendent of Vernon Hills, Ill., seven years as customer service manager for a Silicon Valley computer disk manufacturer called Dysan, and seven years as administrative services manager in Sunnyvale's Community Development Department before making the move to Monte Sereno.
Lehr said she'll stay with Monte Sereno long enough to brief her replacement on city matters. She expects to clean out her desk sometime in July or August.
For her replacement, the city seeks someone with five years of broad-based experience in local government, Lehr said. Vast knowledge of city government is necessary, since the city manager must also act as the head of the Planning Department.
"It takes a jack-of-all-trades, because they don't have people under them to run departments," Hobbs said.
This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, April 24, 1996.
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