The City Manager serves as the professional administrator of the City and is responsible for coordinating all day-to-day operations and administration. Duties include personnel and labor relations, the preparation and administration of the City budget, inter-governmental relations and organizing and implementing the City Council's policies. The City Manager is hired by the City Council and serves as the Council's chief adviser. The City Manager appoints a professional staff to help manage the organization.

Check out the Monterey Mornings with the Manager video playlist, and get the latest city news directly from the City Manager.

Executive Management team:

• City Manager
• City Attorney
• Assistant City Manager
• Community Development Director
• Finance Director
• Fire Chief
• Human Resources Director
• Library Director
• Parks and Recreation Director
• Police Chief
• Public Works Director

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Meet the City Manager, Hans Uslar

Mr. Uslar began his career with the City of Monterey in 1997 as a management analyst and was promoted through the Plans and Public Works Department.  He became Assistant Director of Plans and Public Works in 2008, and Deputy City Manager/Plans and Public Works in 2012.

He played a key role in the Presidio of Monterey base operations contract, known as the Monterey Model, a benchmark for public-public partnerships since its start in 1998. He was named Assistant City Manager in 2014 and recently served as the City’s Interim City Manager.

Mr. Uslar’s previous experience includes serving as Project Manager at the Institute for Strategies and Studies in Waldbroel, Germany; Assistant Chief of Branch, Naval Policies and Strategies, Department of Defense, in Bonn, Germany; and Commanding Officer of the German Navy’s ship “Hermelin”, Kiel, Germany.

He holds a Master of Arts (MA) degree in Educational Theory from Bundeswehr University of Hamburg, Germany, and a Master of Science (MS) degree from the Naval Postgraduate School in Management.

Mr. Uslar is a member of the International City Manager’s Association and the Association of Defense Communities.

He lives in Monterey with his wife and they have a son, Ben, who lives and works in Monterey.

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Fiscal Year 2023-24 Annual Operating City manager Budget Message
See the full budget document on the finance pages

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Message from the City Manager, from the SPRING 2024 edition of City focus

INVESTING IN INFRASTRUCTURE ASSETS

Dear Friends of Monterey, 

The solar eclipse on Monday April 8, 2024 was quite an event. Solar eclipses occur when the sun, moon and Earth align. The moon passes between Earth and the sun, temporarily blocking the sun’s light and casting a shadow on Earth. 
What does this have to do with our City Focus? In our State of the City address in February, I shared with you the City’s need to reinvest in our many existing infrastructure assets. It appears that our funding patterns and our funding needs have aligned to an eclipse of some sort, casting shadows over many of our on-going maintenance demands.  
To be clear: our City does not have a revenue challenge. Our revenues, specifically visitor generated taxes such as hotel tax and sales tax, are solid and stable. Over the past three years we have increased the fund for economic uncertainty from $12.2M to $20.3M, representing 20% of our General Fund. We created a $6M pension reserve to help balance the anticipated swings in Monterey’s contribution to the CalPERS system that are outside the City’s control and are largely based on performance of the market. Reserves for our flagship operations (Sports Center, Library, Conference Center) in the amount of $5.2M will help future generations of decision makers to upgrade or rehabilitate those facilities. All in all, more than $20M were allocated to reserves since Fiscal Year 19/20, including a new Sea Level Rise Reserve. That is significant progress, and it was possible due to higher-than-expected revenues, leaner staffing levels, salary savings due to recruitment challenges, as well as underspending in many operational accounts. Fiscal Stewardship is one of our City Council’s value drivers. The City Councils since 2020 deserve a lot of credit in authorizing the creation of those important reserves. 
Our staff will present soon to the City Council and to our residents our anticipated capital needs for the next five years and beyond. Our Fire stations are in dire need of upgrades and our combined Public Safety Facility that houses our police station, two fire companies, fire administration, and Emergency Operations Center (EOC) on Pacific Street is in dire need of replacement. Across the street from my office is our beloved but aging library. Our active community centers are in disrepair, yet still important community hubs, inviting residents to interact, take classes, and build community. This year the Neighborhood Capital Improvement Program (NCIP) has more than $10.5M available to allocate towards neighborhood  and citywide oriented  projects. It is my hope that many  projects, such as proposed projects to rehabilitate/repair our Fire Stations and Community Centers, will receive support from the appointed neighborhood representatives. These Fire Stations and Community Centers benefit our neighborhoods tremendously. Our City Council also expressed their support for those worthy projects.

I’ll share one more thought with you. Just imagine this: In 1951, the City built and opened the two fire stations (Hawthorne and Montecito) I mentioned above; the library was built in 1958; in 1959, the Police/Fire Station across the library was built and opened. In 1968 the tunnel was built and opened, and more. How was that all possible? It was possible because previous generations knew how to focus on real community needs. (Unfortunately, funds were not set aside to repair these facilities or make significant improvements to them.) Now is the time to focus our efforts back to the essential needs of our community. 

In this City Focus you will also find a report on how well we are doing with our road maintenance. For the very first time in many decades, our road condition index is scoring very high. This was made possible through the voter approved Measure P & S allocating  funding into our streets. The Measure S article on page 15 also shares with you what neighborhoods we invested millions of dollars to fix streets. 

We are now at a point where we need to evaluate all of our programs. Our staff is obligated to bring forward these (sometimes uncomfortable) questions and provide various options to address these challenges. We expect to be criticized and supported. In the end, it is my hope that our community and our City Council will provide our City with balanced decisions which will help us sustain our high quality of life. In the end, I know that together we can break this City eclipse we appear to be in.  
Thank you for allowing us to serve you. Enjoy this issue of the City Focus! 

         Hans Uslar 

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Communications and Outreach