Riverside City Council Takes No Action After Closed Session Review Of City Manager

The Riverside City Council Tuesday took no action following a scheduled closed session review of City Manager Mike Futrell’s performance. 

The item was placed on the agenda after Futrell announced he would not be taking the city manager job in Pasadena. The announcement came as a letter the council sent to his wife last December was circulated on social media.

“Some of the allegations involve my wife, my family [and] they deserve the same basic fairness that anyone would expect,” Futrell told the council during the May 5 meeting, where he called on everyone to suspend judgment until all the facts were known. 

“I welcome accountability,” he said. “I welcome transparency, but accountability must be grounded in facts, not assumptions.”

Before the closed door meeting started, several residents spoke positively about Futrell’s work ethic and asked the council to allow the city manager to continue working for the city. 

“We don’t know what the council will be discussing in closed session,” Art Alcaraz, a Riverside Latino Network board member, told the council. “Let’s hope it’s job related, let’s hope it’s performance related and let’s hope it is focused on a contract extension for a job well-done.”

The city’s public information officer Phil Pitchford said in an email to The Riverside Record the council can generally call for a closed session review at any time. He added that if the council were to take action, it would be reported in open session. 

He also said he wasn’t aware of a time when Riverside had encountered a similar situation where a city manager had reversed course following a resignation announcement. 

Ahead of Tuesday’s meeting, Councilmember Chuck Conder spoke about the situation during the Ward 4 candidate forum put on by The Raincross Gazette.

“Futrell did not sign a letter of resignation, that is a fact,” he said. “I’m not saying, ‘Yes he should go,’ I’m not saying that he should stay. This is something the council will have to talk out.” 

The city initially announced Futrell would become Pasadena’s next city manager on April 15. Ten days later, in a since deleted joint statement his wife Susan Freeman posted on social media, it was announced that he would remain Riverside’s city manager, citing Measure Z and the city’s recent economic relationships as part of his reasoning. 

However, in a recording from an April 26 community group meeting shared with The Record, Futrell hinted that the city’s letter to his wife might have played a role.

“So then we get down to, I’m chosen for the post, somebody emails the mayor of Pasadena the letter, and the rest is history,” he said.

Pasadena Mayor Victor Gordo did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

In the letter, the council asked Freeman to “immediately stop all harassing forms of communication directed at/to any city of Riverside employee,” though it did not include any specific instances of allegations. The city, in response to an early-April request from The Record, declined to elaborate further citing employee privacy rights.

Futrell, at the community meeting, called the letter “an abomination and a sin.” 

Freeman, in email exchanges with The Record and on posts to social media, has denied the letter’s allegations, calling the claims unsubstantiated and an attempt to “politically filter” her for being outspoken on social media.

“I will continue to stand for facts, fairness and accountability,” Freeman said in an email sent to The Record May 1. “I will not allow lies, innuendo or politically motivated attacks to define who I am or continue this character assassination.”