Getting to know you: New Auburn city manager familiarizes himself with community

Auburn's new City Manager Sean Rabé has been busy since officially stepping into his role last month. In addition to getting to know all the ins and outs of City Hall, Rabé has also visited Cruise Nite, spoken at the 49er Lions Club and served as Grand Marshal for the Auburn Family Fourth of July Parade. "So it's kind of like drinking from a fire hose and getting to know all the people on all the stuff that's happening all at once," he said. "It's just been so busy, since I've started with meeting and to try to get my arms around everything that I haven't been able to do as much of that as they think I would like to." Before heading to Auburn, Rabé served as Town Manager of Loomis for about six years. He facilitated several key projects in the downtown area that will bring $6 million in private investment downtown, and was successful in bringing Costco to Loomis. Rabé is no stranger to small towns. He grew up in Amador County and before his life as a public servant, he was the editor and general manager of the Amador Ledger Dispatch. Rabé said as a journalist, he covered many jurisdictions and governments. "Being exposed to government on that side is kind of why I chose the path of majoring in government," he said. Rabé began his career in government as an assistant city manager in Sutter Creek. Eventually, he was promoted to city manager, where he learned to juggle many roles at once. At one point, following a round of layoffs due to an economic collapse, Rabé ended up serving as community development director, HR director, risk manager, public works director and served as a general manager of a county wastewater collection system, all at the same time. "And what that did is led me to gain 10 years of experience compressed into three years," he said. "It was really valuable to see the way that all the different departments work together, which is what a city manager does." Rabé said he has only had the opportunity to work with smaller cities so far in his career; Auburn will be his biggest to date. He said working for smaller cities provides a lot of experience in different roles. "What I'm looking forward to is continuing the city on from where it is now and just moving forward," Rabé said. Regarding challenges, Rabé mentioned the city has experienced a fair amount of turnover and staffing issues. Auburn has had four city managers in 14 years. "I want to try and stop that as much as possible and keep a kind of consistency, which is important for the culture of the organization," he said. Rabé also said he'd like to help the city focus on its Gold Rush history. "I think that figuring out ways to celebrate the history that we have and not forgetting that is important to kind of form where we're moving forward in the future," he said. He said Auburn will also have to "be creative with housing and new development" and help bring new businesses to town. "So hopefully, the form-based code will help lay the groundwork for that and hopefully a general plan update, or at least updating zoning and circulation elements is going to be important," Rabé said. Auburn's current General Plan is more than 30 years old. "That's not functional for the city even if we're not going to grow," he said. "We still need to have the documents updated, sort of routinely." Rabé said when the city does tackle updating its General Plan, it will require considerable public involvement because it's "not my General Plan and not the staff's General Plan, it's the community's General Plan." Rabé said one of his main goals is to look at revenue generation for the city so Auburn doesn't have "a fiscal issue down the road." "We've set up a bunch of different fiscal and financial policies," he said. "I told council it's a marathon and not a sprint. Because there are different things that we have to unwind and figure out why they were being done the way that they are." Other goals include boosting morale at City Hall, addressing strategic planning and starting the General Plan. Rabé said he has a collaborative leadership style, which includes trying to gain as much input as possible in order to make the best decision to move forward. "Institutional knowledge is important to kind of carry things forward," Rabé said. "So I rely on people that have the subject matter expertise a lot." Rabé said he considered Auburn as a potential career move for several years and was recruited for the position three times, but the timing was just never right. He lives in Rocklin with his wife of 16 years and their daughter, who is about to enter fourth grade. Rabé said he didn't want to uproot his daughter for a job. "When you have kids, career considerations change a lot," he said. Rabé said he spends his free time with his family and his extended family in the Northern California region.