By Doug Miller
Having reached age 65 and having served the city of Long Beach as its chief executive three times over 20-plus years, Edwin Eaton said he is taking the latest change in the city's political climate as an opportunity to retire for good.
Eaton, who was first appointed in 1979, retired for the first time in 1999 and was succeeded by Bruce Nyman. Nyman resigned to take a job with the county, and Eaton returned in 2001, staying until April 1, 2002, when he retired again and Harold Porr was appointed. When John Laffey resigned after just a few months on the job in June 2006, Eaton was again pressed into service, promising to stay in the job, at the pleasure of the council, until at least December 2007.
When the Republican coalition swept last November's council election, Eaton said he assumed his retirement was again imminent. "Nobody's said anything to me, but in the past 10 or 12 days people have had a tough time looking me in the eye," Eaton joked. "Ahh. I've been around a few years ... Next week people will say, 'Eaton who?'"
Eaton said that City Council President Tom Sofield met with him on Monday, told him the council planned to hire Charles Theofan and thanked him for his service. He was offered a month's pay as severance, and Eaton accepted. "As city manager, I'm entitled to 30 days [notice] [and] a public hearing," he said, quoting the city's charter. "But of course I just said let's do it. Pay me 30 days and I'm gone. I want this [transition] to be seamless and painless. I'm going to be living in town and paying taxes, and I want them to succeed."
After Sofield swore Theofan in as Eaton's successor Tuesday evening, he thanked Eaton for his service. "I've come to respect him a great deal," Sofield said. "Our administration's agenda is to roll back taxes, and we feel that Charles is better equipped to that task." Eaton, whose last day was Tuesday, did not attend the ceremony.
Reached via cell phone on Monday during a late-afternoon boardwalk stroll, Eaton said that each of his three terms as city manager were unique. The most recent, he said, while just 18 months long, may have been the most satisfying. "I have no fear of saying this: The City Council that just ended was the most dysfunctional I ever worked with," he said. "Yet we got a lot done - more, I think, than was accomplished in the previous four years."
He paused. "They were dysfunctional, but I think the five people individually wanted to do good things," he said. "The job of the manager was to get a consensus, and I think we did that on a number of occasions." Perhaps as a warning to his successor, he offered this perspective: "The city doesn't need a fence straddler. You can't just pick and choose, you have to respond to all five people. All were elected, and all need to be responded to. I defy anyone to say I chose sides in the last 18 months."
While Eaton said he was satisfied with what he had accomplished, he added that the odds of Eaton Part IV were slim. "I've learned never to say never," he said. "But it sounds farcical to think I could come back again."
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