Something was off. The email exchange, the tit-for-tat, was not what I would have expected from a man reported to have managed almost a quarter of a billion dollar budget and been a high level executive with a large staff. That’s what had been reported about John Mauro. But it’s not true.
Who is John Mauro? I began to wonder.
He is the city manager of Port Townsend, just about a year into the job. He came here from Auckland, New Zealand, one of the most desirable cities in the world, in one of the most desired countries in the world. New Zealand is a magical, beautiful, safe place. It has free health care and one of the world’s top educational systems. It is progressive and philosophically green. This is the place where billionaires have built their refuges for when the world falls apart.
Mauro left there to come back to the United States. For years, Americans have been applying to emigrate to New Zealand “at an astounding rate.” You could call Mauro’s journey reverse migration.
And he left an incredibly sweet job as Chief Sustainability Officer for the Auckland City Council, a job that enabled him to travel the globe and hang out with environmental activists. He arranged and attended conferences. He gave interviews and wrote climate action plans and plans for planting trees and adding bike paths and eliminating cars from Auckland streets. As described in a program for a presentation he gave in Australia, as CSO “John and his team provide thought leadership, drive strategic direction and champion change.”
Here’s what the Peninsula Daily News reported about the job Mauro left to come here. The report came out after Mauro had completed his interviews with city officials and panels of people who headed up services and organizations in Port Townsend. He had just finished a community meet-and-greet. The article, by managing editor Brian McLean, was dated June 21, 2019, with the headline, “Port Townsend City Council Picks Sustainability Officer as City Manager”:
That is a huge budget, almost seven times Port Townsend’s annual expenditures.
Mauro’s Twitter feed, thousands of tweets in a few years, shows him in constant motion, traveling far and wide. That Twitter feed also showed him taking a jab at Phil Goff, the Mayor of Auckland.
That’s January 16, 2020. He had been City Manager of Port Townsend for over 3 months and here he is poking an elected official, his former boss in another country. And what’s with that hashtag “#showmethebudget@AklCouncil”? Why does he care enough to have his challenge come to the attention of Auckland’s Mayor and City Council? Wasn’t all that behind him?
He’d made his decision to leave Auckland early in 2019, or earlier, and interviewed in Port Townsend and all the way across the North American continent in Windham, Maine, where he told the local paper he was homesick for the place where he’d grown up. He was offered a job as Windham’s city manager a couple days after being offered a job here. “It’s hard to take Maine out of me,” Mauro told a Windham town hall meeting. “It’s a great time to come home.”
He hadn’t been living at “home” for a very long time. In 2013 he’d followed his wife to Auckland from his job as a bicycle activist in Seattle. She’d been offered a “tenure track faculty position,” he said when announcing his resignation from Seattle’s Cascade Bicycle Club in July 2012. “We’re going to give it a go in a country we both love.”
Before that he’d spent under two years as a climate change analyst for Seattle, and before that about 3 years with small non-profits in the Greater Seattle area, including the Pilchuk Audubon Society.
Before that he worked in the Himalayas as a guide and instructor, preceded by a brief stint as an instructor in environmental studies at Middlebury College in Vermont (his alma mater) and 14 months with shamans, medicine men, and tribal chiefs in Ghana, Bhutan, Sikkim, Australia and Bolivia. He graduated from Middlebury College in 1999 with a degree in environmental studies/conservation biology.
Now he’s in charge of Port Townsend’s public safety, streets and sewers, utilities, union and business relations, payroll and everything that goes on in City Hall.
There was controversy about how much he demanded, and how much the City Council agreed to pay him. He got what he wanted: $156,000 starting salary, a $20,000 relocation allowance, an amount equal to 13% of his salary contributed toward his retirement, an annual vehicle allowance of $5,400 a year, a life insurance policy, and 120 days of vacation and sick leave starting his first day of the job.
He was sworn in on November 4, 2019. Three months later he’s jabbing the Mayor of Auckland and going on about “show me the budget, Auckland Council.” Something’s off.
He didn’t come to Port Townsend because he was homesick. This wasn’t his home. Maybe he came here to be the activist he couldn’t be in Auckland. Maybe it’s to build those cycle lanes and the “resiliency” he couldn’t get on the other side of the planet.
An interview he gave between resigning his post in Auckland and starting up here suggests he may not have left that primo job in New Zealand on happy terms. The threat of climate change to Auckland, “would scare the p–s out of you,” he said in a September 12, 2019 interview with a New Zealand media site. The Auckland City Council and community “needed courage and ambition to make better progress, but there was a trend towards ‘show-ponying.'” (Defined as “a person who appears to perform well, but has no real ability.”)
Mauro criticized Auckland for not accepting his ambitious plans to build a fleet of electric buses and not adding “cycleways” as fast as he wanted. “We go half way, we build some great projects and then we start hearing from people how crazy and radical we are….”
That explains Mauro taking a shot at the Mayor and City Council of Auckland from City Hall in Port Townsend. He’s still upset about the rejection of his ideas. He’s still stinging from being called “radical and crazy.” He’s going to show them by building more cycle lanes and resiliency in little Port Townsend than Auckland was willing to do when he was Chief Sustainability Officer reporting to Auckland’s CEO, supervising a staff of 20 people and having a budget of $211 million.
Except that last part’s not true.
$211 million would build an awful lot of bike lanes. That’s a pile of money but I couldn’t find that item anywhere in Auckland’s budgets. You’d think there’d be at least a mention of the Chief Sustainability Officer with that kind of money to spend on green projects. Except there isn’t.
I wrote the Mayor of Auckland for help. I also wrote Jim Stabback, CEO of the Auckland City Council. The Mayor referred my inquiry to the Auckland CEO, because Mauro’s old position was in Stabback’s chain of command, and I received a written response from his Chief of Strategy. Mauro did not report to the CEO of Auckland City Council. He was a mid-level bureaucrat in the planning department under a General Manager. He did not have a staff of 20 people. He was not in charge of building anything. Here are some photos of his “team” that I found on Mauro’s prolific Twitter feed:
His team was small enough that they could all go hiking together.
The City of Port Townsend employs more than 100 people.
As for that $211 million budget, it was more like $630,000US. It was approximately $1 million in New Zealand dollars, but at the rate of exchange at the time Mauro left, it was about $630,000 US.
That is less than 2% of the $35 million city budget Mauro now oversees as city manager.
Did anyone check with the Auckland Mayor and CEO before hiring Mr. Mauro?
Here is the written statement on behalf of the Auckland Council CEO received late on October 2. “Jim” is the Auckland Council CEO, Jim Stabback:
Jim Scarantino was the editor and founder of Port Townsend Free Press. He is happy in his new role as just a contributor writing on topics of concern to him. He spent the first 25 years of his professional life as a trial attorney, then launched an online investigative news website that broke several national stories. He is also the author of three crime novels. He resides in Jefferson County. See our "About" page for more information.
BRAVO – You are a true service to the community. Do you have an 501 c foundation? Many of us would show our appreciation.
The article on Mauro demonstrates how out of its element when it comes to basic management skills like vetting a city manager not to mention is BLM endorsement.
It’s nice to see some actual investigative journalism. I’m appalled by what Mr. Scarantino has uncovered, but not surprised. As a former department manager responsible for hiring I learned quickly to ALWAYS check references. Sad to see that our local government either forgot or never knew that simple rule.
So bottom line he lied. I would like to see his employment application and resume. If he was not vetted properly then shame on those that decided to hire him. The least that should happen – reduce his salary and take away some of those primo benefits. This is appalling!
Mr. Mauro took a job he knew he would not be allowed to do in full. This had to be discussed prior to his starting the job. Look who were the front people within the No Term Limit Council that pushed for his being hired. Long term no term limit City Council Members looking to stay their course. He was compromised from the beginning.
The situation with the parking tolerance policy that benefits 20 year No Term Limit Council member and current 3 time appointed mayor Michelle Sandoval ignores and breaks municipal codes Mr. Mauro is responsible to have enforced and fund. Explained on the City website. The benefit to Sandoval and her industry is the ability to sell and develop space in the Historic District without parking consideration. The ripple effects to visitors, business, and cultural norms have been explained endlessly and ignored without exception.
I sent dozens of photo documentation of damages for years to full council and the City Manager as well as many others involved. No reply from any appointed Mayor Stinson/Sandoval or No Term Limit Council. Mauro hired an interim police chief who also knew he would not be able to fulfil his oath of office to enforce all laws and codes. I have written about this endlessly for the record to PT Leader in comments and elsewhere to the sound of crickets. The record is clear. Compromised individuals are the cornerstone of corruption. That observation comes from a past police detective whistle blower who works with me in my woodshop. His story would shock you as to how far corruption can go.
Past city manager Timmons is on record acknowledging parking problems, ignoring studies, and not taking action he promised years ago. He now is in charge of the FWPDA after the sudden announcement that David Robison, who was fired by the city years ago for false claims as to qualifications, then appointed to run the FWPDA, has retired as FWPDA executive director. He was hired by the city after being fired by the city for ethics violations. Not personal, a troubling fact. The City runs the campus at the fort for non inclusive special interests. Always has through compromised Robison. That business model has now failed. Timmons and the Cherry Street project, which ignored laws and codes, show who’s hands are all over Fort Worden and have been through Robison. What was the property of all of the people of the state is no more.
The FWPDA is another story which should be told. Honestly. The social club that is Port Townsend government needs to be fixed with Term Limits on Council and an Elected Mayor. A city manager can be corrupted easily, and more so the longer they are employed and become part of the problem.
For as long as I can remember locals here have been saying, “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” It’s all about the cronyism, corporatism, or elitism. Qualifications mean nothing. Hard work means nothing. Laws and rules mean nothing, because those were all written for the little people. Do I need a permit for this flower bed? Depends. Who are you? And if you really annoy the wrong people, you better make sure you have a permit to remove that tiny bit of hemlock trying to grow by the mailbox.
Ironically, this is also how you destroy the environment. People are a significant part of the environment. Injustice, double standards, despair, powerlessness, drug addiction, all create more trash and people who don’t care because they can no longer take dominion over their own lives and the land around them. A sense of ownership, the ability to effect change, some assurance of justice, and property rights, are all critical to preserving the environment.This is one reason why self help housing often works so well, people are invested in their homes and their communities, so they take an interest in it.