City Manager Lori Ann Farrell Harrison has presented four Costa Mesa City employees with City Manager Leadership Awards who continued to perform high-quality work even in the face of the pandemic.

Those awardees include Executive Assistant Lidian Estecoc, Senior Programmer Analyst Judith Luis-Ortiz, Assistant Recreation Supervisor Marianna Pena and Accounting Specialist II Amanda Koh.

“I am so blessed to work with these four talented professionals,” Farrell Harrison said. “Their hard work and dedication to their jobs during these difficult times is very much appreciated and I’m grateful to them all.”

Estecoc began her journey with the City of Costa Mesa in Sept. of 2004, when she was hired as a Police Records Technician. She quickly moved up the ranks, first as a Sr. Police Records Technician and later in 2013 as a Police Records Shift Supervisor.

Then in October of 2017 when her career path took a major turn and she was promoted to be the Executive Assistant to the City Manager, assisting with the day-to-day operations of the city as well as acting as a city ambassador and key contact with members of the public on behalf of the City Manager.

For the past year, she has worked closely with City Manager Lori Ann Farrell Harrison to help manage her extremely busy calendar, setting up meetings with department heads and city leaders and assisting with public engagement.

As the COVID-19 crisis hit, Estecoc quickly adapted to the new normal and became proficient in the Zoom meetings and online schedules. She worked mostly from City Hall and helped manage the City Manager’s Office while the majority of City Hall employees telecommuted. In particular, she has closely managed the City Manager’s weekly Live Zoom meeting with employees, assisting with the script, finding new topics and creating presentations for the meeting.

Luis-Ortiz joined the City of Costa Mesa I.T. Department in January 2016. Regardless of the tasks assigned, she always approaches it with a very positive attitude. She has repeatedly demonstrated the ability to handle multiple projects simultaneously, and provides quality results.

Luis-Ortiz has established excellent working relationships with all City departments. As a result of her efforts, she has earned a very high level of respect from her co-workers. During the pandemic, she and the IT team have been instrumental in supporting the remote operations of employees who were telecommuting.

Pena began with the City of Costa Mesa in 2007 as a Recreation Leader IV and has steadily promoted through the organization to the title of Assistant Recreation Supervisor, overseeing the day-to-day operations of the Senior Center.

Since the closure of most City programs in March of last year due to COVID-19, Pena has been instrumental in leading the Costa Mesa Senior Center’s team to ensure Costa Mesa’s seniors continued to receive meals, groceries, social services, and wellness checks.

Pena worked with Meals on Wheels to modify the Senior Center’s Congregate Meal Program to move to an outdoor frozen meal distribution format and to arrange for Parks & Community Services staff to deliver frozen meals directly to self-quarantining seniors who were unable to pick-up meals on a weekly basis. From mid-March to the end of November, the Costa Mesa Senior Center has distributed more than 76,000 frozen meals to seniors throughout the City.

As the direct supervisor of the Senior Center, Pena has been passionately dedicated to ensuring Costa Mesa’s seniors have been served as best as possible during these trying times. These services would not have been possible without her, and it is for this reason she is deserving of the City Manager’s Leadership award.

Koh joined the City of Costa Mesa in the Finance Department in December of 1998, working in the Purchasing Division. In 2005 she was promoted to the Accounting Specialist II position with the Accounting Division.

Since the retirement of her colleague Robindale Shepherd in December, she stepped up to assume full responsibility of the weekly payable check runs and year-end form 1099 preparation on top of her regular day-to-day tasks.

She worked through the December Holiday Closure to catch up on vendor warrants and with IT’s assistance, dealt with challenges such as new 1099 formats.