Marathon Man

By Blair Clarkson
Staff Writer

Feb. 9 -- As Santa Monica continues to lick its wounds from the national economic slump and vast State budgetary cuts and braces for its own protracted budget battles and slow and steady recovery, who better to take over the City's financial helm than a marathon runner.

Steve Stark, the smiling Texas native who replaced Mike Dennis as the City's new Finance Director in July 2003, has run eight marathons since taking up the sport in 1980 and plans to take a "financially cautious, sure-footed approach" to address the City's own budget challenges and the State’s ongoing fiscal woes.

"Looking into the future, our biggest challenge is how to keep Santa Monica financially healthy while continuing to provide the same quality of service," he says with more than a hint of a Lone Star drawl. "But it's hard for a city to plan long term when you don't know from day to day what the State is going to take away from you."

Although facing a stiff test, Stark comes to Santa Monica with a solid and proven track record, and is excited about the new challenge.

Prior to being selected for this new position by City Manager Susan McCarthy and Assistant City Manager Gordon Anderson, Stark spent the last 11 years serving as director of administrative services and treasurer for the City of Santa Clarita, where he still lives with his wife of 27 years, Lesly.

While serving in Santa Clarita, Stark oversaw the implementation of numerous technological advances during the early 1990s.

In addition to helping launch the city's Web site in 1992, Stark directed the installation of fiber optic networks, established partnerships with local schools to share technology and organized meetings with government, business, education and health care officials to assess technology needs and "get a common vision of where we wanted to be as a community."

"I thought technology would be key to the future of city government," Stark says. "We really tried to bring City Hall to your home through technology."

In fact, this tech enthusiast had originally planned on majoring in the field, but shifted to accounting and business administration early on at West Texas University after being cautioned that he'd have trouble getting a job in the flooded tech market.

"I got some bad advice from a college counselor," he says with a wry smile.

Before bringing his wife and two daughters (Stephanie, 23, and Holly, 19) to Santa Clarita, Stark spent three years serving as director of management services and internal auditor for the City of Fontana from 1989 to 1992, and 10 years as internal audit manager and assistant internal auditor in Arlington, Texas.

A self-proclaimed "morning person," Stark looks forward to getting a jump on the fresh opportunities and "whole new mindset" that Santa Monica provides.

"Santa Clarita was a new community with no adjacent cities, so its focus was on growth," he says, citing the city's emphasis on expansion. "The question was how to manage the growth."

But Santa Monica – with half the population of Santa Clarita and a budget almost three times as large – requires a radically different approach to "a very different set of parameters," he says.

"Santa Monica is landlocked and basically built out," Stark says. "The challenges here are very different than in a growing community."

As Stark sees them, the important questions facing the City are: "How do we provide services with the constraints and (geographical) limitations that we have, how do we maintain our aging infrastructure and revenue base and how do we provide growth within our fixed boundary?"

For answers to those questions, City officials must keep looking internally for ways to provide better services to the community and "continue to build on the good framework and positive things Santa Monica already has."

"The attitude of the City is that we're going to do whatever it takes to live within our means and provide quality services," he says.

Ever attuned to the City's operations, Stark, who arrives early each morning for his daily run at the Spectrum Club before work, has also been focusing on ways to make the Finance Department more efficient.

"I'm trying to take a fresh look at how we provide services as a department, how we serve customers, and how we communicate to taxpayers," he says. "I'm looking for ways to streamline processes that could be made simpler and easier."

Maintaining the City as a major tourist attraction will be vital, since sales taxes are such an important part of the General Fund, according to Stark.

"We constantly need to look at ourselves and keep our community fresh and attractive" to outsiders, he says. "Healthy businesses and fresh new businesses bring jobs and disposable income. We must keep Santa Monica an attractive place to live, work and visit."

Motivated by the early death of his father, Steve Stark began running when his wife was pregnant with their first child so he could "live long and enjoy her," and he hasn't stopped since.

Now as the new Finance Director completes his initial year on the job, Santa Monica hopes that Stark is just starting the first leg of his latest marathon.