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The San Ramon City Council has announced a familiar name as its selection for the permanent role of city manager, following a months-long search, application and interview process.
Following a closed-session council meeting last Friday afternoon, city officials confirmed Interim City Manager Steven Spedowfski as councilmembers’ selection to fill the position on a permanent basis, following the retirement of former city manager Joe Gorton effective at the start of this year.
“It is a great honor to be selected as San Ramon’s next city manager,” said Spedowfski, a longtime San Ramon city employee and former Livermore city councilman. “This is a wonderful community, and I am looking forward to continuing to serve the residents of San Ramon in this new capacity.”
Although Spedowfski’s interim contract included a clause preventing him from applying for the position on a permanent basis, it explicitly allowed the council to consider him for the position regardless. His appointment is pending contract negotiations and formal approval of the employment agreement by the council at an upcoming open meeting
“The recruiting consultant did an outstanding job and gave us a lot of good candidates; we learned a lot from our interviews,” Mayor Dave Hudson said in a statement Friday. “But in the end, we realized what we had is what we wanted; this was the decision we all came to.”
“Steven has been dedicated to the San Ramon community for more than 20 years, and brings a wealth of knowledge to the role,” the mayor added. “We are confident in his leadership as our next city manager.”
It was Hudson who first introduced Spedowfski publicly in 2001 upon his hiring as a transportation specialist for the city. He proceeded to work as an analyst in the city’s engineering department from 2004 to 2009 before being promoted to senior analyst, a position he remained in until 2019.
Spedowfski was promoted to deputy city manager in 2019, under the leadership of Gorton who held the city manager position for just over six years before his retirement. Councilmembers selected him as interim city manager in December, shortly before Gorton’s retirement went into effect.
Outside of San Ramon, Spedowfski also has a background as an elected and appointed official in Livermore, where he served on the City Council from 2014 to 2018 after three years on the city’s Planning Commission from 2011 to 2014.
Simone Finney, city communications analyst, said that Spedowfski’s new contract would be discussed by an ad hoc committee of the City Council that is set to be formed at its meeting next Tuesday, with a vote to approve the contract coming at a later public meeting.
