Lawndale Tribune AND lAwNDAle News The Weekly Newspaper of Lawndale Herald Publications - Inglewood, Hawthorne, Lawndale, El Segundo, Torrance & Manhattan Beach Community Newspapers Since 1911 - Circulation 30,000 - Readership 60,000 (310) 322-1830 - October 15, 2015 Raytheon Sponsors Boys and Girls’ Youth Sustainability Poster Contest A young member of the Boys and Girls Club receives a backpack from Raytheon as part of its seventh annual 2015 Youth Sustainability Poster Contest. 104 children at the Boys and Girls Club of Los Angeles Harbor submitted poster ideas for a sustainable school, home or community. All kids who submitted a poster for judging received a Raytheon Sustainability backpack. Raytheon leaders judged the posters based on creativity and message, and the top winners in each category received prizes. Photo courtesy of Raytheon. City Manager Steve Mandoki: Renaissance Man in Public Service By Nancy Peters position was working for the Superintendent When one attends a first City Council of Recreation and Parks as an Administrative meeting at the age of 17 because it is a Assistant. I was heavily involved for a ‘parttime’ requirement of a high school government worker,” he chuckled. “After a couple class, it is not even a fleeting thought that nearly 40 years later you will be sitting on that very dais managing that same city and thereby returning full circle. Steve Mandoki, Lawndale’s City Manager since April 2011, did take a few detours along his life’s journey searching for a career. Born in Los Angeles, his family moved to Hawthorne when he was eight years old, so his first few years of education was not in the South Bay. He graduated from Leuzinger High School before attending El Camino Community College and then Long Beach State where he focused on radio, television, and production classes at first, but switched to psychology and Dominguez Hills for his Bachelor’s and Master’s of Arts degrees. “At first, I thought I would teach and actually was a Teaching Assistant for a Psychology professor, helping students in counseling tracks, statistics, and just general work in the classes that professor taught. I even did some of the lectures,” recalled Steve. “But that wasn’t exactly what I wanted, so I went back and took business classes and was trying to figure out how to apply the knowledge base I had created for myself. “I really enjoyed the analysis and statistical portions of the psychology work and heard about a program back at Long Beach State that was a Master’s in Public Administration and it involved business, analysis, statistics, and there was an internship attached to the program, whereby cities would hire an intern to allow for on-the-job training, in a way. “I had several opportunities to work in Long Beach, or South Gate, or Carson and it just felt ‘right’ to choose Carson. My first of years, I was promoted to Administrative Program Specialist in the City Administrator’s Office where I handled budgeting, staffing the Mobile Home Rent Control Board, and conducted public meetings. I learned a lot!” After hearing about other opportunities in other cities, with the idea that every new job means new exposure to how cities are run and focusing on the knowledge gained, Mandoki left Carson for Yorba Linda in late 1990. That job just wasn’t busy enough for a hard-working person. “There was a major project with a Block Grant and a car dealership build-up around a business park that could have been the next “AutoSquare,” but the times were shifting economically in the country which trickled down to the states, counties, and cities, and the deal fell apart. I learned a lot, but I needed to feel good about being there, so I began again to think about a new job. “Then, this happened. The City Administrator I worked for in Carson called me out of the blue to let me know that he was taking a job as the City Manager for a new city in Riverside County. He was employee number 1 for Murrieta and he invited me to be employee number 2. June 1991 began an adventure that few others can say they have experienced. We built a city from a community that had previously only been a fire district. “With the support of a newly elected city council, we were responsible for hiring all the employees needed to effectively run a city, built from the ground up, where there was no police department and no city hall. We opened a Wells Fargo Bank to house the city’s first library. There were about 24,000 residents back then in 1991 who claimed Murrieta as their home ZIP code. It was a great experience to watch the city form. A very challenging task was negotiating how to get the tax increment from Riverside County. I enjoyed that one!” Mandoki said. “A miscalculation by the county was costing the city more than $100,000 per year.” Within those 14 years, Steve Mandoki also served as the City Manager and created the first budget in Lotus. He knows the city finances still use that same initial spreadsheet he created. During his tenure at Murrieta, Steve used his natural artistic abilities to design and paint the mural for the Murrieta Library on the open bank vault door. Not just a city employee who is a good manager, Mandoki is a Renaissance man, of sorts. An avid artist who specializes in portraitures on canvas with ink and washed acrylic, his art is strictly a hobby. Believing that his art comes from an organic place and is tied to emotions, he doesn’t draw “on command.” He plays guitar and mandolin and joins a band for bluegrass gigs whenever these are booked. And, he does play his guitar every day/evening for hours, even while watching television. “I believe the arts are so important to life. Everyone thrives on art. Kids learn better when they have arts in their curriculum. The arts got me through my childhood. I love movies and went to the movies every weekend all through my youth, still enjoying them now. And I love the theatre. Art, music, film, theatre—can’t live without any of them,” he stated emphatically. Mandoki came to Lawndale after a stint in Costa Mesa that lasted about five years. Inside This Issue Certified & Licensed Professionals.......................6 Classifieds............................3 Food.......................................5 Hawthorne Happenings....3 Legals............................2, 6-7 Looking Up...........................7 Police Reports.....................3 Seniors..................................4 Sports....................................4 Weekend Forecast Steve Mandoki page 7 Friday Sunny 79˚/70˚ Saturday Partly Cloudy 79˚/70˚ Sunday Partly Cloudy 75˚/66˚
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