Palazzo lands job on North Coast as city manager

Gene Palazzo, former Redevelopment Agency director for South Lake Tahoe, has been hired to be city manager of Crescent City. He starts Aug. 8.

Palazzo’s was one of 11 positions eliminated in February.

He was making about $130,000 in South Tahoe and will be making $98,000 a year on the coast. He will be reviewed after six months and one year, with the possibility of a 3 percent raise at each interval. The contract does not have an end date.

Gene Palazzo

Palazzo will receive up to $7,500 in moving expenses. His wife, Ellen, who is assistant city clerk for South Tahoe, told Lake Tahoe News she is not going to Crescent City.

Palazzo is apparently taking several pages out South Lake Tahoe City Manager Tony O’Rourke’s playbook by telling the Crescent City Council he intends in the first year to create a strategic plan, business plan, five-year financial plan and capital improvement plan.

All of this will be new to Palazzo, who did not do any of that type of work while in South Lake Tahoe.

Palazzo is somewhat familiar with the area, having graduated from Humboldt State University in 1987 with a bachelor’s degree in geography.

— Kathryn Reed