Mr. Milnes has served as city manager in three California cities for 24 years. He retired as city manager of Stockton after serving for over 9 years, and he also served as city manager for more than 6 years each in Yuba City and Merced. During his public service career, Mr. Milnes also worked in Burbank and Santa Cruz, California. He was appointed to the California City Planning Commission and as Treasurer of the California City Community Health Clinic foundation. Mr. Milnes holds doctorate and masters degrees in public administration from the University of Southern California, and has taught graduate level courses as a part-time instructor in public administration for USC and Golden Gate University. He received his undergraduate education from Occidental College with a bachelor’s degree in political science. Mr. Milnes specializes in public finance issues, organizational management audits, organizational system design/personnel allocation, analysis of methods of service delivery and the cost/advisability of programs.

email Dwane

Mr. Gary leads Citygate’s Fire Services practice. Chief Gary has 39 years of experience in the fire service, including 5 years as a paramedic. In 1994 he was appointed Chief of the Livermore Fire Department, in Alameda County, California, and in 1996, he successfully designed and led the implementation of the Livermore-Pleasanton fire department consolidation, which subsequently won a California League of Cities Helen Putnam award. The Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department today is one of the few successful city-to-city fire mergers in California. Chief Gary retired as Chief of the combined department.

For the past 14 years, he also has been a lead instructor and program content developer for the Standards of Coverage process. For many years he annually taught a 40-hour course on this systems approach for fire deployment at the California Fire Academy and he consults across the United States and Canada on the Standards of Response Coverage process. (read more)

email Stu

Mr. Corey has served as assistant city manager and city manager in California cities for over 28 years. He assembled and led the team of experts that developed the City of Richmond (CA) Financial Recovery Plan. The Plan, which embraces his “Simple Principles of Wealth Accumulation for Municipal Government,” set the course for the City to eliminate its massive operating deficit and cash flow problem even though the City was considered to be the most complex and difficult mid-size city (pop. 100,000) to manage in the State of California. As cited in The Bond Buyer in January, 2005: “Moody’s Investors Service restored Richmond, Calif.’s issuer credit rating to investment grade this week, citing a financial turnaround for the San Francisco Bay area city a year after it discovered a $35 million budget deficit.”

Mr. Corey holds a Master’s degree in public administration (MPA) from the University of Southern California. He received his undergraduate education from the University of California, Davis, with a Bachelor’s degree in political science. Mr. Corey specializes in public finance issues, community development in high-growth environments, and related performance audits. He began his association with Citygate in 1999, taking leave in 2002 to be of service to the City of Richmond as Assistant City Manager, Acting Finance Director and Interim City Manager.

email Jay

Ms. DeRoos is a personal leadership coach with Citygate Associates. She supports the process of personal growth and development by assistance with uncovering, understanding and overcoming blocks to desired change. She teaches workshops on personality, temperament and relationships. With a BA from UC Davis in Rhetoric, focusing on interpersonal communication, and an MA in Clinical Psychology, Ms. DeRoos is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. She has worked with individual clients from large private sector corporations such as Intel, HDR Engineering, and Hewlett Packard, as well as staff from state and county offices. In addition to her clinical work, she has been mentoring and coaching for 25 years. Ms. DeRoos is a lifelong learner and especially enjoys the integration of current research in neurobiology with the understanding of human behavior.

email Evey

Richard Carson, MPA
Senior Associate, Organizational Development

Mr. Carson has thirty years of experience as a manager in city, county, regional and state government. His experience includes being a city administrator, assistant city administrator, community development director and planning director. Mr. Carson recently served as the city administrator for the city of Cascade Locks, Oregon. Prior to that he was director of Clark County Washington's Community Development Department for 10 years and managed 165 staff, a $17 million budget and reviewed $600 million a year in new construction. His staff included planning, engineering, building, fire marshal, code enforcement and animal control. Mr. Carson held a similar position with the city of Oregon City. Mr. Carson was the director of planning for METRO, the Portland metropolitan area's regional planning agency, which has a population of 1.5 million people. Mr. Carson holds a Master of Public Administration from Lewis and Clark College (Portland) and is currently working on a doctorate degree in "organizational development" at Washington State University. Mr. Carson is a speaker, writer and has published over 100 essays in major publications. Mr. Carson was also featured in the PBS documentary "Making Sense of Place" and published in Public Management magazine.

email Richard

Bruce McClendon, FAICP
Senior Associate

Mr. McClendon recently retired as the Director of Planning for Los Angeles County, California.  Previously, Bruce has served the following Florida counties at the Director level: Orange and Hillsborough Counties.  Additionally, he has served as the Director of Planning for the following cities in Texas: Galveston, Beaumont, Arlington, and Forth Worth.  Bruce has a Bachelor of Arts Degree from the University of Missouri and a Master of Regional and City Planning (Emphasis on Economic Development) from the University of Oklahoma.  Bruce has served two terms as the National President of the American Planning Association and is a charter member of the American Institute of Certified Planners.  Bruce is an accomplished author with over one hundred articles currently in print in over fifty different publications. 

email Bruce

Ms. Comarell has over 30 years experience in general government, organizational development, long-range and current planning and historic preservation.  Ms. Comarell served nine years as the Executive Director for the Ogden City, UT, City Council.  Ms. Comarell was recently under contract with Salt Lake City, UT for implementation support in the Planning Department. Previously, she served as the Ogden Assistant Community Development Director, as the President of the Utah Chapter of the American Planning Association, and on numerous national APA, AICP committees.  She also has taught as an adjunct professor of urban planning at the University of Utah and served as a member of the Regional/Urban Design Assistance Team (RUDAT), a program sponsored by AIA.  Ms. Comarell also has extensive experience with decision makers and community groups that involved facilitating and consensus building, which she gained while serving as a planner in various community development roles.

email Pat

Steven Harman, MPA, IPMA-CP
Senior Associate

Mr. Steven Harman recently retired after a thirty-two year career in human resource management and joined Citygate Associates. He is an experienced and acknowledged leader in the public sector human resource management community.  He has more than thirty years of personnel management experience covering the full array of management functions including recruitment and selection, classification and compensation, training and development, policy and procedure development and other related areas.  For the past 20 years, he has served in human resources management leadership positions for several cities on the west and east coasts.  Mr. Harman has a Master’s degree in Public Administration with a concentration in personnel management and labor relations.  He holds the highest level of professional certification issued by the International Public Management Association for Human Resources (IPMA-HR).

email Steven

James R. Davis
Senior Associate, Law Enforcement

Chief Davis has more than thirty-four years of public safety experience. Having served in every capacity in the El Cajon Police Department, Mr. Davis retired in 2004. Mr. Davis led an organization of more 312 people with an annual budget of more than 24 million dollars. He went on to consult on regional, state, national and international issues and has led two successful Bond Measure campaigns. He accepted an appointment from the California Governor as the Chairman of the Board of Parole Hearings. He served the administration in that capacity until 2008. Mr. Davis has his Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Management. Among his many educational accomplishments, Mr. Davis is proud to be a graduate of the California Command College, Senior Management Institute for Police (Police Executive Research Forum and Kennedy School of Government) and the FBI National Academy. His professional associations include the International Association of Chiefs of Police, Police Executive Research Forum, California Police Chiefs Association and the California Police Officers Association. Mr. Davis is active in his community and was honored as the 2005 Citizen of the Year.

email Jim

Blanca Gordo, Ph.D.
Associate

Ms. Gordo is an Associate with Citygate Associates. She specializes in regional-local economic development, local technology development processes, public policy and organizational analysis and development. She has taught related courses in the departments of City and Regional Planning and Ethnic Studies and is currently Academic Coordinator at the Center for Latino Policy Research at the University of California at Berkeley, where she instituted and directs the Technology, Development and Policy Research Team. Dr. Gordo holds a doctorate in City and Regional Planning from the University of California, Berkeley. She received her master’s degree at UCLA, with an MA in Urban Planning.

email Blanca

Michael Ross, MA
Senior Associate

Mr. Ross has over thirty-five years of public management experience and served with the Contra Costa County Animal Services Department as its Administrative Officer and Director for over twenty years. He is a specialist in all aspects of animal control services including program management, staff development, budgeting, labor relations, personnel administration, supervision, and training. Mr. Ross served as President of the California Animal Control Directors Association. He also served as Chairman of the Association’s Legislative Committee. Mr. Ross earned his B.A. and M.A. at Sacramento State University and holds a Community College Teaching Certificate in Government and Business Administration.

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Peter Bryan, MS
Senior Associate

Mr. Bryan has over thirty-five years of public fire protection and consulting experience. He has served as Fire Chief for the Cities of Rancho Cucamonga, Monrovia and Norco, California. He has earned Bachelor of Science and Masters Degrees in Fire Protection Administration. Mr. Bryan is a Certified Fire Chief and Certified Chief Officer by the California State Fire Marshal’s office. Mr. Bryan specializes in code consulting, development of wildlife interface/intermix fire protection plans, technical plan reviews and station, apparatus, and personnel implementation scheduling.

email Peter

From left to right: Chad Jackson (Project Administrator); Terri Crawford (Administrative Assistant); Lois Standley (Financial Services Manager).

email Chad | email Terri | email Lois

In addition to the specific associates described above, Citygate also has an extensive network of independent consultants, industry representatives, public officials, and specialists in a variety of fields who are available to assist as subcontractors in Citygate projects including: