Sources inside city hall say City Light CEO Jorge Carrasco will resign today.
Carrasco spent last year embroiled in controversy over his own big pay raise. He apologized for that and a string of other fuckups, and things seemed to have died down. But the department has had issues since 2007, when an employee survey showed higher-than-ever levels of dissatisfaction. And just in November, four women sued City Light saying the department has a “long-standing history of discrimination and retaliation” against people based on their gender, age, or sexual orientation.
An announcement—and hopefully some answers about why Carrasco is resigning now—is expected from the mayor’s office at noon. I’ll update this post when we know more. Update after the jump.
UPDATE: Well, the mayor’s office has confirmed that Carrasco is “retiring” on May 8. City Light’s chief compliance officer Jim Baggs will be interim CEO while the city does a national search for Carrasco’s replacement.
“After more than 11 years leading Seattle City Light, I’ve decided the time is right for me to retire,” Carrasco says in the press release.
Is there ever really a right time when you’ve got a string of accomplishments like these?
• Carrasco’s management style during his previous jobs has been criticized as “unyielding,” “unnerving,” and “aloof.”
• When he was city manager in Austin, Texas, he once fired 100 public hospital employees without notifying the mayor or city council.
• In a poorly timed request, Carrasco tried to get the mayor to raise his already obscenely high salary. The council got on board, but then the mayor changed his mind and decided he wouldn’t support it.
• In 2013, Carrasco met two men who claimed they needed some copper wire because they were with a nonprofit that “taught disabled children how to make jewelry.” They were actually con men and ended up with $120,000 worth of copper wire and scrap metal for free.
• Because who would want all that embarrassing stuff in their Google results, City Light had paid an online reputation-management company, Brand.com, to get critical stories about Carrasco off of his top search results, the Seattle Times reported.
But the mayor’s office and City Light are sticking with their story.
City Light spokesperson Scott Thomsen and mayoral spokesperson Viet Shelton say Carrasco told the mayor earlier this week about his plans to leave. Thomsen says Carrasco isn’t doing media interviews today, but his decision to step down has nothing to do with those controversies or that retaliation claim from four City Light employees. According to Thomsen, Carrasco helped the department pay off long-term debts, build a reserve fund, improve its bond rating, and usher in a new, more accurate billing system.
“He feels like he’s taken [City Light] from a spot where it was in difficult conditions when he came in to where it’s operationally and financially on stable ground,” Thomsen says. “He felt it was the right time for him to retire from City Light.”
Council Member Kshama Sawant—who chairs the council’s energy committee, was outspoken against his pay raise, and grilled Carrasco at a meeting last year—told me today she wasn’t ready to talk about Carrasco’s time at City Light or her hopes for whoever replaces him, but she’ll release a statement soon.
This post has been updated since its original publication.
