City Manager Scott Stiles to retire November 1 after three and a half years leading Palm Springs
Stiles, who joined the city in March 2023 after seven years running Garden Grove, announced his retirement this month. The council must now find his successor.
PALM SPRINGS: City Manager Scott Stiles will retire November 1, closing a tenure of about three and a half years in which he led Palm Springs through the Section 14 settlement's aftermath, the Plaza Theatre restoration and a run of capital projects.
Stiles joined Palm Springs in March 2023 after seven years as city manager of Garden Grove. His record in Palm Springs includes securing funding to repair bridges damaged in Tropical Storm Hilary, advancing the city's Navigation Center for unhoused residents, a run of balanced budgets, progress on pension funding, and the reopenings of the Plaza Theatre and the Thompson Hotel.
He also oversaw the city's work on the $5.9 million Section 14 settlement with former residents and their families, and the continued rollout of the district-based election system the council adopted before his arrival.
The council will need to appoint an interim city manager and launch a recruitment for a permanent successor.
The city manager's job
In California's council-manager form of government, the city manager is the city's chief executive: hiring and firing department heads, preparing the budget, negotiating labor contracts and carrying out council policy. The council sets direction; the manager makes the machinery move. A three-and-a-half-year tenure is a solid run in a profession where the average stay is closer to five or six years, and where managers serve at the pleasure of shifting council majorities.
Stiles came to Palm Springs with a background in the nuts and bolts of municipal operations, and his tenure was defined less by grand vision statements than by the steady management of a city with outsized ambitions and a small-town government structure.
What comes next
The City Council will need to appoint an interim city manager and launch a recruitment for a permanent successor. The timing is delicate: the new manager will arrive just as the council itself turns over, with three seats on the November ballot.
City managers in California typically serve at the pleasure of the council, and a change in council majorities can bring pressure for new leadership. Whoever takes the job will inherit the Dream Hotel negotiations, the airport's capital program and the Measure J spending plan.
The recruitment itself will be a test of the council's priorities. Executive searches for city managers typically take four to six months, involve a recruiting firm, and draw candidates from across the state. The job posting will reveal what the council thinks the city needs: a dealmaker for the development pipeline, a steady operator for the bureaucracy, or a reformer for the post-Stiles era.
The council is expected to discuss the transition process at an upcoming meeting. The Post will cover the search as it develops.
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