Why this matters
Chula Vista is the second-largest city in San Diego County and is on the threshold of a wave of massive developments that could reshape the city.
The former communications manager for Chula Vista described city hall as a toxic workplace, and said the official expected to be formally hired as the next city manager on Tuesday was a primary architect of the dysfunction.
Tiffany Allen, picked by the City Council in a June 17 closed session, was responsible in part for a workplace that “was not centered on merit or performance or even interest of the public,” Michele Clock Schrotenboer said in a March 18 interview with an attorney conducting a workplace investigation into her complaints about city hall culture.
Schrotenboer, who worked as the city’s communications manager for nearly 18 months, said in the interview that city hall “is an environment where gossip, blame, and negative talk about other people is really at the core of how things are run.”
She assigned responsibility to Allen, the assistant city manager, and another top official Courtney Chase. Current City Manager Maria Kachadoorian, who announced in May she was leaving, was either disinterested, had “mentally moved on” to retirement or was powerless to put a stop to the toxicity, Schrotenboer said.
Her comments came in an interview conducted three months before the council, after several non-public sessions where the city manager position was discussed, tapped Allen to succeed Kachadoorian. On Tuesday the council is scheduled to approve a contract for Allen, who would assume her new job on Oct. 3 at an initial salary of $355,450.
From left: Chula Vista deputy city manager Courtney Chase, City Manager Maria Kachadoorian and Assistant City Manager Tiffany Allen. (City of Chula Vista)
The nearly three-hour long interview details numerous instances in which Schrotenboer said she was slighted, undercut or marginalized. She cited the treatment when she filled out a standard, two-page “Exit Interview” form when she departed Jan. 17, and then expanded on that description in the interview, according to records that inewsource obtained.
“What I experienced at the City of Chula Vista was really unlike anything I had ever seen in my 25-year career,” said Schrotenboer, who had worked in several other local governments including Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District and a decade at San Diego County before taking the job in Chula Vista.
“Just pervasive and overwhelming toxicity that was well known and discussed both internally within the organization and even externally known throughout the San Diego region.”
She likened the upper levels of city administration as a “mean girls club environment,” a reference to a film about a high school clique of girls who use gossip, bullying and other tactics to gain and protect their social status. While she blamed Allen she also recounted several instances where she felt Chase had also treated her poorly.
Schrotenboer said that early on in her tenure she received praise and support from Allen and Kachadoorian. But it turned sour in the fall of 2024. She recounted one virtual meeting in November that she organized in preparation for a big announcement: a letter of intent between the city and San Diego State University for the school to offer some higher education classes at the city’s future Millenia Library.
Schrotenboer said she laid out a plan worked out with SDSU executives on how to roll out the big announcement. But during the meeting a clearly perturbed Allen dismissed her proposal in terms Schrotenboer said were alternately sarcastic, angry, hostile and disrespectful.
She said that after the meeting one SDSU official told her Allen’s behavior was “demeaning” to Schrotenboer. Later, Schrotenboer said she was excluded from a subsequent meeting on the rollout plan.
Schrotenboer declined to comment to inewsource about her exit form or her interview for the workplace investigation.
The March 18 interview was conducted to discuss Schrotenboer’s exit comments, as well as a workplace complaint from another worker against Schrotenboer herself, according to a transcript of the session.
It is unclear why the city launched an investigation into Schrotenboer’s complaints against Allen, and a complaint against her, three months after she left city employment.
The city declined to make Allen or Chase available for interviews. An employee in the city manager’s office said in an email “the city would not be commenting or conducting interviews on personnel matters.”
Allen is a 20-year veteran of the city working in the finance department and as director of development services.
After announcing her selection the council issued a statement praising her as “an exceptional leader with a wealth of experience and deep understanding of Chula Vista’s unique needs.”
“We are confident that under Tiffany’s leadership, Chula Vista will continue to thrive and achieve even greater success in the years ahead while meeting the evolving needs of our community,” the statement said.
Allen was selected to be the next city manager in a unanimous vote taken by the council in a closed session on June 18. (Councilmember Michael Inzunza was absent.)
John Moot, a lawyer who accompanied Schrotenboer to the interview, said he sent a copy of the interview transcript and the exit interview to all of the council members on May 6, before a series of closed-door discussions about appointing a new manager that occurred in late May and June.
Allen’s selection comes at a critical time for the South County city. A decades-long civic goal of developing its bayfront property came to fruition in May with the opening of the Gaylord Pacific Resort and Convention Center, a sprawling 1,600-room hotel and meeting space.
It’s the first phase of a development that will include nearly 3,000 hotel rooms, new and expanded parks and open space, condominiums, restaurants and retail space.
The project could be as transformative to the city as the annexation and buildout of the Otay Ranch communities were starting three decades ago.
Then, on July 10 a Virginia company unveiled a proposal for a massive sports and entertainment complex that would include a tennis complex, water polo academy, retail, office and hotels on a 124 acres of bayfront off Bay Boulevard. The project, which got an initial approval from the San Diego Port District for a six-month negotiating period on Tuesday, was initially proposed in 2024.
The city is also working on developing a University Innovation District that would create a higher education center in conjunction with SDSU, UC San Diego, and Cal State San Marcos.
With those high stakes in play city officials decided not to launch a broad search for Kachadoorian’s successor, who will have to shepherd the next stages of bayfront development and the other projects.
Allen appears to have had an influential ally — Kachadoorian, who she is replacing.
In a deposition in a lawsuit filed by former deputy city manager Eric Crockett, who she abruptly fired two years ago, Kachadoorian said Allen had expressed a desire to be the next leader, perhaps as early as 2023, and that Kachadoorian had recommended her as her replacement.
Kachadoorian announced she was leaving on May 30. The announcement came 10 days after a performance evaluation discussion that was held in closed session, city records show.
The council met in closed session to discuss appointment of a new city manager on June 3, and again on June 10. A week later, Allen was selected to succeed Kachadoorian after another closed session.
Mayor John McCann did not respond to questions about the process for selecting Allen.
The lack of a search troubled former longtime engineer Frank Rivera, who retired in April 2023 after nearly 39 years with the city. Rivera, now a board member of the Otay Water District, said he told Councilmember Jose Preciado last year that the city should conduct a search for other candidates to be the next city manager in addition to any in-house candidates.
“I told him if we’re going to go through with the city manager position it shouldn’t be Tiffany,” Rivera said. “You’ve got to open it up and let people apply. Just don’t hand it to her. And even as much as Maria says Tiffany’s the best one because she knows the history of Chula Vista — OK. But open it up and make her prove it.”
Preciado did not respond to several messages about Allen’s hiring and Rivera’s account of their conversation.
Selecting Allen did not come as a great surprise to Kimberly Vander Bie, who retired in August 2023 as an associate planner after 27 years with the city, or some of her former colleagues.
“I wasn’t surprised I guess because Maria had always talked about how wonderful Tiffany was,” she said. “And we were like, she’s setting her up to succeed her. So we figured that was the plan. But I was very disappointed.”
inewsource spoke with other former city hall employees, who did not want to be named because in their current jobs they still do business with the city. They had worked at the city for varying lengths of time, and said they concurred with Schrotenboer’s description of a toxic or hostile work environment.
The March 18 interview was scheduled to discuss Schrotenboer’s exit comments, as well as a workplace complaint from another worker against Schrotenboer herself, according to a transcript of the session.
Once in the interview while recalling her experiences Schrotenboer had to stop to compose herself. She said her last week on the job she was placed on medical leave by her doctor because of the mental health strain from the workplace.
In the interview, Schrotenboer described a workplace of bullying and intimidation, and said her former colleagues are cowed into not speaking out.
“People are afraid,” she said. “They are afraid to speak out. This is not easy for me to be talking about this, but — I know people now who are struggling in this environment, that are being bullied and intimidated. And in fact one of them called me this morning and she said, I am so proud of you for telling the truth and speaking out.”
Allen will oversee a workforce of about 1,300 employees and a budget that is close to $600 million, the largest spending plan in the city’s history.
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