Santa Barbara Appoints New City Administrator Kelly McAdoo

[Updated: Wed., Feb. 14, 2024, 9:50am]

The ever-revolving door at the top of Santa Barbara City Hall just came to a high-powered stop with the announcement that Kelly McAdoo, city manager of the East Bay city of Hayward, has been selected as the city’s newest city administrator. 

McAdoo has worked for the City of Hayward since 2010, the last seven as city manager there. Before that, she worked six years as assistant city administrator and prior to that for the City of Palo Alto. 

McAdoo was hired after an extensive recruitment effort and replaces interim administrator Sarah Knecht, who filled in last summer to replace former administrator and public works director Rebecca Bjork, who in turn filled the shoes of her predecessor Paul Casey. Unlike Knecht, who served as city attorney prior to taking the top spot; Bjork, who ran the Public Works Department for years, and Casey, who ran Community Development prior to becoming city administrator, McAdoo was recruited from outside City Hall. 

“Santa Barbara is a dynamic and vibrant community,” McAdoo told the Independent. “I was intrigued by the mix of challenges and opportunities that the city is facing. … I am excited to make Santa Barbara my new home.”

News of McAdoo’s appointment was announced with great enthusiasm by Mayor Randy Rowse, who spoke of her skills, temperament, and related job experience in the most glowing terms. McAdoo is scheduled to take the helm in late May. 

In a “weak mayor” system such as Santa Barbara’s, the single most important decision left to a city council to make is to select the city administrator, who in turn is responsible for hiring and firing all other department heads, drafting the annual budget, and crafting city council meeting agendas, as well as a host of other details too innumerable to count. 

In announcing McAdoo’s departure, the City of Hayward praised McAdoo’s responsiveness to the issue of tenant displacement and repurposing public lands for the production of housing. The City of Santa Barbara is hoping to transform Paseo Nuevo into a major housing development with roughly 500 units of rental housing. During McAdoo’s tenure, the City of Hayward also opened a neighborhood navigation center to help people on the streets transition into housing. 

Kelly McAdoo is a distant relative of William Gibbs McAdoo, California’s one-time U.S. Senator (and former U.S. Secretary of the Treasurer) who resided in Santa Barbara for some time and was responsible for the dispensation of federal contracts during the Great Depression.