Lakeport City Manager Margaret Silveira will step down on July 31 after more than a decade at the helm.
Silveira referred to her position in Lakeport as “the greatest job of my career.” It’s a job she assumed in April of 2010 at the height of the Great Recession after serving as the city manager of Gustine for three years. She was Lakeport’s first female manager.
“Working with her has been a pleasure and an honor,” said Councilwoman Mireya Turner, as quoted by Lake County News.
The past decade has been marked by challenges and successes.
Silveira took action to pay down the city’s unfunded retirement liabilities and improved the sewer and water systems, and in 2016 helped guide the city’s passage of another sales tax measure, Measure Z.
During her tenure, the county would be swept by a series of natural disasters. In the winter of 2017, heavy winter storms and flooding did damage to the city’s Library Park seawall. In the summer of 2018, the entire city of Lakeport would be under an evacuation order due to the River fire, one of the arms of the Mendocino Complex.
More storms hit the city in early 2019, doing still more infrastructure damage. Then, later that year, the city – and the rest of the county – was under a prolonged public safety power shutoff.
During the emergencies, Silveira and her team were gathered together at City Hall in the emergency operations center, working with other agencies and trying to keep the community up to date on those situations.<<
The city has since improved its financial standing and its reserves have grown to 65% of the general fund (up from around 10%). With help from a $5.9 million state grant and the donation of an old Bank of America building, the city is working on a new lakefront park and community center. The city is also putting the finishing touches on a new promenade and other awaited projects.
Read more about Silveira’s departure and the city’s plans going forward.