City Manager to Retire After 1 Year on Job

After one year on the job, the Los Alamitos city manager announced this week she would retire.

On March 1, Angie Avery will end her tenure as city manager. She is one of more than half a dozen city managers who have headed the city in the past decade. Avery, who began her term January 2012, said she doesn’t have her retirement activities planned out yet.

“I don’t want to do anything in the beginning,” Avery said. “I just want to relax and enjoy my time because I’ve been on a (work) treadmill now ever since I started working when I was 16.”

Avery said she made the decision to resign in mid-December. The decision had nothing to do with the recent changing makeup of the City Council or the contentious nature of many past council meetings, she added.

“It didn’t have anything to do with that,” Avery said. “I know all those people, I’ve known (new Councilman) Richard Murphy for a while a now.  They’re all good people. They all want what’s best for the community. They sometimes don’t agree on how to get there.”

“This has to do with me being retirement age and wanting to explore new things and basically enjoy life before I get too old,” Avery added.

Avery acknowledged that switching between many city managers can cause “instability” for a staff.

“Any kind of instability is difficult,” she said “(For) the management staff, it’s always difficult to always have a new boss every couple of years or so, but if you are professional and you are doing your job, you’re not going to have any problems.”

Angie adds that she didn’t accept the position thinking she would end her work so soon.  

"I did not say 'I’m only going to do this for one year,'" she said. "(However,) In December … I thought 'time’s a wasting,' and I would like to kind of relax and smell the flowers."

As city manager, Avery said she had a number of projects she helped the council with, but the one she was most proud of was the Race on the Base, which she helped coordinate while she was city Director of Recreation and Community Services.

“That was my baby,” said Avery, who held the director position for five years before becoming city manager. "During my time we took it from a net profit of $14,000 to a $100,000 profit, giving back to the (city's) general fund."

Before serving Los Alamitos, Avery was the recreation manager at the city of Downey for three years and before that served two stints totaling 20 years with the City of Long Beach.

Avery, who will turn 59 this year, said her hobbies include gardening and exercising and she hopes to spend more time doing them.

She said she's also looking into sleeping in.