Posted on December 20, 2018 at 11:47 AM by Thomas Reeves
I’m excited to announce the appointment of Scotty Douglass and Caluha Barnes, who will be joining the city’s leadership team as Deputy City Managers. After an extensive nationwide search, these two candidates rose to the top and have signaled their intent to call the City of Modesto home.
Following Scotty’s military experience, he began his career in public service by working for the City of Santa Cruz as a Police Dispatcher. The 15 years that Scotty worked at Santa Cruz Regional 9-1-1 afforded him the opportunity to serve in many positions, including with information technology management, human resources, risk management, finance, capital projects, and public safety. This center provides emergency dispatch and technology services to five cities and two counties (Santa Cruz and San Benito). Prior to leaving this agency, Scotty facilitated a consolidation of dispatch services from San Benito County into the Santa Cruz dispatch center. This remains the first and only cross-county local government dispatch consolidation in the State of California, saving the County of San Benito and City of Hollister close to $500,000 annually, and increasing the 911 center’s revenue by $350,000.
Scotty joined Stanislaus Regional 9-1-1 (SR911) Joint Powers Authority as the Executive Director in mid-2016. At this agency, he was responsible for all aspects of the organization that provides emergency dispatch and public safety technology services to all agencies within Stanislaus County. Recently, he was given an opportunity at the Stanislaus Animal Services Agency (SASA) as Interim Executive Director, a role he has used to begin a strategic visioning process to be used in the development of a robust business plan. While overseeing both agencies, Scotty has been responsible for over 90 employees and a combined budget of over $13 million.
Scotty has a bachelor’s degree in management and a master’s degree in leadership.
Caluha Barnes has more than 25 years of experience in the public sector and has worked at every level of government – federal, state, county, city and special district. A significant part of that time has been in administrative management, budget development and oversight, organizational change management, and process improvement.
Most recently, Caluha served at the City of Santa Rosa as Director of Community Engagement, where she was charged with implementing recommendations of a Mayor’s Task Force on Open Government. The Department also staffs a 14-member Charter-directed Community Advisory Board for which she launched the first strategic planning process since the Board’s inception in 2002. In July of 2018, Caluha assumed the additional responsibility for the Recreation and Parks Department as the Interim Director.
Prior to the experience with the City of Santa Rosa, Caluha held several posts with Sonoma County, first as Administrative Services Director for the Health Services Department, where her responsibilities included human resources, labor relations, and fiscal operations, then as Principal Administrative Analyst, with a departmental portfolio of internal service departments.
For the State of Georgia, Caluha was the Director of Administration for the Secretary of State’s Office where she oversaw human resources, budget development, accounting, payroll, purchasing, supplies and inventory management. In the state’s Healthcare Licensing Division, Caluha was the Executive Director and principal advisor to seven state licensing boards where she identified and implemented operational improvements, and staffed seven licensing boards in the regulation of over 30,000 licensees.
Caluha holds a master’s degree in public administration.
In their roles as Deputy City Manager, Scotty and Caluha will act as liaisons to the City Council for many of the high-profile projects from city departments. Scotty will also act as a critical resource on the city’s performance management, while Caluha will provide oversight on the Strategic Plan and homeless program.
Both will start on January 8. Please join me in welcoming them to the team.