Costa Mesa CEO Tom Hatch presented Chief of Code Enforcement Fidel Gamboa with the CEO Leadership Award at the monthly Meet and Greet event on Thursday Oct. 27 where new employees are welcomed and new promotions celebrated.

“Controversy often accompanies the cases Code Enforcement handles,” Hatch said. “And there can be many heart breaking reasons why a resident is not complying with Code.  Fidel has honed the skill of balancing the direction of City officials and compliance with Code, while compassionately dealing with residents.”

Named Chief of Code Enforcement in February of 2015, Gamboa oversees 12 full-time and part-time Code Enforcement Officers as well as a management analyst and one support staff.

Code Enforcement is responsible for enforcing a variety of complaints including those involving dilapidated properties, group homes, and homeless matters. Since the beginning of the year, more than 1,700 cases have been opened to address complaints received from a variety of sources including the online Costa Mesa Connect and telephone hotline.

Gamboa was also instrumental in establishing the new Community Improvement Division of Development Services, providing assessments of current staffing and their deployment as well as comparing our Code and with those of other cities, formulating recommendations to improve the division where appropriate.

With the exception of a small stint at the City of Irvine, Fidel has worked for the City of Costa Mesa since 1994 as a Crime Scene Specialist in the Police Department but, primarily, in Code Enforcement since 2000.  He has a bachelor’s degree in social sciences from UC Irvine.

In addition to honoring Gamboa, CEO Hatch welcomed several new employees including, Nadia Flores, Office Specialist, City Clerk Division; Johnwilly Aglupos and Roger Rath, Assistant Planners, Development Services; Danielle Garza,  Permit Processing Specialist, Finance Department.

In the Parks and Community Services Department new employees include Geovanny Benitez  and Jordan Brucelas, Recreation Leader III; Karen Caspa, Trenton Cooper, Silvia Hernandez, Matthew Nguyen, Tu Nguyen, Sunya Ungar-Rujijanyawat Janet Zuazo, Recreation Leader, Jason Ramos, Recreation Leader IV and Paul Lopez – Maintenance Worker; and from the Police Department, Michele Wilson, Police Records Technician.

Those celebrating promotions included Heather Hamilton promoted to Management Aide in the Information Technology department and Laura Gomez and Gabriela Ruiz who were both promoted to Recreation Leader IV in Parks and Community Services.

City and Fire Department leaders were pleased this week to host a contingent of Chinese government leaders from the city of Chengdu, who visited Costa Mesa as part of a multi-week, fact-finding mission on the best practices of Community Emergency Response Teams or CERT.

Brenda Emrick, the city’s CERT manager who has visited Chengdu several times last year for training purposes, said the group was in the United States on a study tour sponsored by The Asia Foundation. 

Welcoming the group to Costa Mesa along with Emrick was Mayor Steve Mensinger, CEO Tom Hatch, Police Chief Rob Sharpnack and CERT leaders from the State of California and the cities of Huntington Beach, Long Beach, Downey and Irvine as well as members of The Asia Foundation.

Chen Liuting, who represented The Asia Foundation, said the visitors from Chengdu were all emergency managers who had prior training from the Federal Emergency Management Association. She said the city of Chengdu in the Sichuan Province of China has a population of 13 million people.

“It is a big city with lots of responsibilities,” she said. “That’s why there are here to learn more about CERT.”

The past two weeks the group has been studying at the University of Maryland, before winding up in Costa Mesa on Tuesday and Wednesday. During their visit to Costa Mesa, the group got a tour of the city’s Emergency Operations Center as well as a visit to Orange Coast College to learn about campus-based CERT.

The trip also included workplace seminar as well as a visit to South Coast Plaza for lunch at Lawry’s and dinner at Maggiano’s.

At the September Meet and Greet, City CEO Tom Hatch presented the CEO Leadership Award to Lt. Joyce LaPointe in recognition of her to work dealing with the city’s quality of life challenges, including coming up with solutions in regards to homeless and transient population issues.

“What I admire about Joyce is that she is always quick to point out that what she does is part of a larger team effort,” said CEO Hatch. “I appreciate her leadership skills and value the hard work she has done throughout the years and most recently her efforts to solve our homeless challenges.”

LaPointe is a 19-year veteran of the Costa Mesa Police Department.  She started her career at Costa Mesa as a police officer in 1997 and was promoted to the rank of Corporal in 2002, Sergeant in 2007 and the rank of Lieutenant in 2015, when she became the first female to hold that rank in the department’s history.

As an officer LaPointe has extensive field experience including patrol, field training, bike patrol, traffic investigation, defensive tactics instructor, and tactical flight officer.  Joyce is the recipient of the Mothers against Drunk Drivers Century Award, a Life Saving Merit and recently helped with a child birth in the field.

During her eight years a sergeant, Joyce had the opportunity to manage several Patrol Teams, the Field Officers Training Program, Jail Operations and the Force Tactics Training Team.

Currently, she is the Area 1 Commander, who oversees Patrol Operations in south end of Costa Mesa.  She also manages the Field Officers Training Program, the Force Tactic Training Team, Community Service Officers, Park Rangers, and Bike Detail Team.

Prior to joining Costa Mesa PD, she worked at Costa Mesa High School as the Athletic Trainer and Campus Security. A native of Mt. View California, LaPointe graduated from Southbay Christian High School in 1986 and then attended Vanguard University on an Athletic Scholarship, where she received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Kinesiology.

In addition to LaPointe, the CEO welcomed several new members to the Costa Mesa team, including, Development Services Intern Katelyn Walsh, Parks and Community Services Recreation Leaders Victor Acosta, Fernando Barajas-Valladares, Jessie Cerda and Denzel Muldrew.

From the Police Department, Hatch welcomed new Officer Cory Montgomery and Crime Scene Specialist Brittany Godoy. Not in attendance but also recognized were Officer Nick Dempkowski and Police Aide Jeremiah Stanley.

In the way of promotions, Hatch congratulated Marian Traylor, who was promoted to Deputy City Clerk, Denise Baldacci now a Recreation Leader III, Briana Delfin And Enyelber Franco Recreation Specialists And Joseph Mendoza and Delgado Salazar – Recreation Leader II.

Hatch also thanked retiring city employees Maintenance Services Manager Bruce Hartley, Fire Protection Analyst Dave Hollister, Police Officer Matthew Olin and Senior Records Technician Teresa Peterson-Goerke.

Police Chief Rob Sharpnack on Monday Aug. 29 welcomed Nicholas Dempkowski to the force, the latest police officer to leave another department and join Costa Mesa’s men and women in blue.

“This is yet another bright spot for Costa Mesa PD,” Sharpnack said as he introduced officer Dempkowski. “Nick is going to be a great addition to our department. He is committed to public service and law enforcement and we are glad to have him aboard.”

Attending the swearing in ceremony were Mayor Steve Mensinger and City CEO Tom Hatch as well as several staff members from the Police and Fire Departments and City Hall.

Dempkowski comes to Costa Mesa by way of Fullerton, where he joined that force in 2013 and trained as a K9 officer.

Prior to that, he worked as a reserve officer for the Long Beach Police Department after graduating from the Fullerton College Police Academy. He also has a background in off-road racing.

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In addition to Officer Dempkowski, Sharpnack introduced new academy graduate Cory Montgomery as well as three new hires for Communications/Dispatch division, Erin Cedillo, Nydia Robles and Jennifer Rosenberg.

He also congratulated several police officers for the great restraint they showed during an incident on Friday night, where a man armed with a knife was trying to commit suicide-by-cop. The man was detained safely, despite making threatening gestures toward police.

Sharpnack noted this is a particularly proud time for him as he rebuilds the department with the best and the brightest and bulks up staffing in speciality areas like detectives and community policing.

He thanked the efforts of recruiters such as Sgt. Jerry Hildeman and training assistant Jody Gonzalez for their efforts in bringing in top talent and he commended his officers for doing great work, even in the lean times.

“We have not dropped our service levels at all,” Sharpnack said. “We continue to provide a high level of service to the residents of Costa Mesa.”

Costa Mesa Police Officer Lance Healey was the recipient of June’s CEO Leadership Award.

Our video team spent some time with Healey, who helps run the Police Department’s highly successful Pre-Academy, to get an idea of what his workday is like. Click on the video below for more:

At the May Meet and Greet, City CEO Tom Hatch presented Management Analyst Alma Reyes with the CEO Leadership Award.

Reyes has been with the City of Costa Mesa since January of 2011, where she began her first job as a Management Analyst for the Public Services Department. In April of 2013, she transferred into the Parks and Community Services Department to serve as both the Management Analyst and Recreation Supervisor.

In November of 2015, Reyes moved into the Fire & Rescue Department to serve as a Management Analyst and Chief Dan Stefano praised her passion for public service, team value orientation and engaged professionalism.

She provides support to the Fire & Rescue Department in the following areas: Budget preparation, procurement of supplies and equipment, processing invoices, contract administration, managing/tracking funds, monitoring of department budget, and special projects (i.e. CIPs).

She also serves in various city committees.

Prior to working in Costa Mesa, Reyes worked for 10 years for the City of Hawaiian Gardens in various areas of local government including: Administration, Public Relations, Public Safety, Public Works, Recreation, Code Enforcement and Finance.

In addition to honoring Reyes, CEO Hatch welcomed three new employees, recognized three more for promotions and congratulated Public Services Director Ernesto Munoz on his upcoming retirement.

Kelly Shelton, assistant to CEO Tom Hatch, was presented with the CEO Leadership Award for the month of April. See that story here.

To get a better idea of what it’s like to be the assistant to the CEO, we spent some time with her and got a glimpse of what her day is like.

See the video for more.