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Morro Bay City Manager David Buckingham resigns

May 12, 2017

David Buckingham

Amid anger over his continuing job hunt, Morro Bay City Manager David Buckingham today announced plans to resign. His last day is slated to be June 26.

“The city council appreciates all that Dave has done for Morro Bay,” Mayor Jamie Irons said. “He has had a significant, positive impact on our community, staff and the city over the past three years.”

Earlier this month, Buckingham was one of two finalists for the town manager position in Vail, Colorado. In the end, the Vail Town Council decided to reopen the selection process.

Information that Buckingham had applied for the town manager position in Vail became public less than three months after Buckingham said he planned to remain on the Central Coast.

Late last year, Buckingham applied for the city manager position in Whitefish, Montana.

Buckingham said he applied for the position of city manager in Whitefish after several Morro Bay Council candidates ran on a platform of getting rid of him. Neither of Buckingham’s detractors won a seat on the council.

After another candidate was hired in Whitefish, Buckingham said he and his family love the Central Coast, and he would be quite happy serving Morro Bay for the next five to 15 years. He then applied for the Vail manager position.

Buckingham began working in Morro Bay in Sept. 2014, shortly after he lost both an Army command position he held and a city administrator job he had sought.


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the blame for the entire situation lies directly on christine johnson, noah smuckler and jamie irons who hired this person, after an ill fated and in-house recruitment process. does anyone else think it odd the irons just doesn’t seem to be able to get along. perhaps the issue is not with the city manager, perhaps the city manager is telling irons something he doesn’t want to hear or letting him know of actions that he can not or should not take, food for thought folks.


tally up the amount of severance between the former city attorney, former city manager and buckingham and you are nearing if not exceeding a cool million.


but no big deal since very few seem to be concerned with $$ in morro bay, the community that could have been treating their effluent to at the minimum a tertiary level with a 34 million sewer plant, not is look upwards of 165 million plus.


great leadership!


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I call it the “Big Lie”!!!

Many believe that Morro Bay had to move the plant from it’s current location, when those in the know, know that the Coastal Commission was about to grant the Permit for the upgrade at the current location. That was until Irons and Company asked for and received a project denial. I believe Coastal has granted three other Sewer Plant upgrade permits for plants with the same proximity or closer to the Beach:(


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He resigns and still gets 6 months severance and a paid month off to look for another job, more than $90,000!?!

That’s the kind of job I need!


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My family and I love morro bay, we just love Colorado skiing a little bit more. These city manager positions are a complete joke. They’re only purpose as far as I can see is to skim about 5 percent of the tax revenue of a Podunk town like morro bay off the top for themselves.


Try a go without some over priced government puke at the helm, morro bay. Have volunteers who care about your 3 stacks and rock give it a go. I bet you will be better off.


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I’m glad to see him leave but the real problem is the City Council. They have completely devastated what was once a properous city. They have taken a 35 million dollar sewer plant and turned it into a 180 million dollar fiasco. They fired a City Manager who had worked for the City for 29 years in one capacity or other, who volunteered for every event there was in town, and was loved by the community and fired a City Attorney who was making $160,000 per year and replaced him with a contracted know nothing who billled the City for $950,000 last year alone. They made it impossible for every city manager, who had any institutional knowledge of this city, to stay and, actually, paid them a $20,000 bonus to quit. Now, we have people, who have been here for 4-6 months in charge of things. It’s very sad to see how Jamie Irons and the previous council + the current council, along with the people who voted for them, have managed to lead a wonderful city over the cliff. This was all so predictable from the beginning. To see the people who voted and forced these people on us in the first place

complaining about the results is more than poetic justice. It’s just too bad that the seniors and others on fixed incomes, who actually built this city, will find it unaffordable now and have to move away.


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Very true. The numbers tell the whole story about how most politicians will just spend spend in order to project an image that uninformed people will think they are doing a great job. it’s like people we know, who we think are doing very well until they have tapped their credit cards out and the collectors start coming and they then disappear and leave everything in a mess. Unfortunately they will take others down too as they keep raising taxes and fees in order to cover their incompetency.


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We can only hope that when a new manager is found that he has balls and brains, but this city won’t hire someone like that, they’ll do a poor job of vetting like they did for this guy and hire another piece of work that doesn’t stand up for the city.

Look at the wizz poor job of paving these people paid for, manholes left lower than the new street surface, streets that didn’t need any work done to them and still potholes in others that they just oiled over, today the city crew did a half baked job of filling potholes at the signal light at main and Quintana,thast section needed a complete over haul, but with poor people in the manager and public works positions this is what we get.


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