Nevada City’s Leadership Has Lost Its Way — And the Public Deserves a Say
Nevada City is a town of just over 3,100 people, tucked into the Sierra foothills, where history, culture, and community pride run deep. It is not a metropolis. It is not flush with revenue. And it has not grown in size or infrastructure capacity for decades.
Yet somehow, our top city executive now earns more than $280,000 a year in total compensation — a sum typically reserved for managers of cities 10 to 20 times our size. How did we get here? And more importantly — who gave permission?
This week, the Nevada City Council will consider yet another pay raise for City Manager Sean Grayson, this one retroactive to July 1. That would make at least three raises since his 2022 hiring, all without any formal public performance review, competitive evaluation, or open financial justification. There has been no transparency, no resident engagement, and no documentation showing how these decisions reflect the needs or will of our community.
For a city with limited tax revenue, a modest general fund, and longstanding infrastructure challenges, this move borders on fiscal malpractice.
Compensation Out of Scale, Out of Step
In 2023, Grayson received a base salary of $177,544 and total compensation of $281,506, according to Transparent California. To put this in perspective:
In 2020, then–City Manager Catrina Olson earned $165,024 total.
In 2016, Mark Prestwich earned $135,512 total.
In 2023, Interim Assistant City Manager Stephen Erlandson earned $141,744.
These numbers weren’t just lower — they were right-sized for a small city like ours.
Meanwhile, Nevada City’s median household income is just $69,552. Our median personal income is just $37,632. There’s no justification for executive compensation exceeding that of California cities like Grass Valley, Auburn, or Placerville — let alone cities with massive budgets and tens of thousands of residents.
And yet, that’s what’s happening.
Layering Executives Instead of Serving the Public
In late 2024, the City created and filled a new full-time Assistant City Manager role, now held by Lon Peterson — another six-figure post with pension implications and no publicly stated rationale. That role was added on top of Grayson’s already expensive contract, with no clear adjustment to duties, salary reductions, or offsetting cuts.
There’s been no fiscal analysis, no staff report showing community benefit, no cost-benefit discussion, and no metrics.
Instead, we’re layering titles and swelling compensation — while public works, police, and fire services continue to operate under pressure, often with fewer resources than they had a decade ago.
This isn’t leadership. It’s bureaucratic self-expansion.
Transparency Was Promised — But Never Delivered
Grayson’s hiring in 2022 came after a mayoral administration shift that leaned into closed-door governance and insider alignments. From day one, his tenure has been marked by low engagement, slow progress, and vague direction. The public was never given the opportunity to weigh in on his qualifications, his vision, or his track record.
And now, two years in, we still haven’t seen:
Any public performance review
Any community survey on city satisfaction
Any staff evaluation report
Any competitive benchmarking
Any financial disclosure about long-term impacts of expanding the executive tier
Under the Brown Act, major decisions that impact public finances must be discussed in open meetings, with sufficient notice and opportunity for public input. Yet many of these actions — including the structuring of the Assistant City Manager role, salary raises, and duties allocations — have occurred with little more than a passing agenda line, buried late in Council meetings or discussed in vague legal language.
That’s not just bad practice — it may be a legal vulnerability. The Council is walking dangerously close to violating Government Code § 54950 et seq., which guarantees the people’s right to observe and participate in decision-making.
What Could That Money Have Bought?
For the same $500,000+ being spent annually on Grayson and Peterson’s combined compensation packages, the city could instead have:
Hired 2–3 full-time public safety or public works staff
Funded street repair or sidewalk restoration projects that have been deferred for years
Supported affordable housing partnerships with local nonprofits
Created a youth job corps or apprenticeship program
Invested in wildfire prevention infrastructure
But instead, those dollars are going to two top officials, one of whom was just added, and the other of whom has yet to prove results or effectiveness.
Misaligned Priorities, Missed Opportunity
Nevada City has never thrived on bloat. It thrived on heart, on lean governance, and on leaders who rolled up their sleeves instead of creating layers of management.
Public Works leaders like Verne Taylor and Bill Falconi were builders. They weren’t in it for the title or compensation. Falconi’s leadership was honored in 2025 with the naming of the William Falconi Bridge, precisely because he served the city with humility and impact, not a padded résumé.
The recent retirement of Fire Chief Sam Goodspeed presents a rare moment to rethink the top-heavy executive structure — to embrace hybrid roles and restore financial discipline. That’s how the city used to operate. We can do it again.
A Reasonable Path Forward
Here’s a proposal rooted in fiscal logic and community-centered leadership:
1. Table the proposed contract amendment until full public hearings and outreach are conducted — including the release of compensation histories, job performance evaluations, and pension forecasts.
2. Request the resignation of Sean Grayson from his current role, offering instead the opportunity to take a pay cut and apply for the now-vacant Fire Chief role, in line with his administrative strengths and résumé. His hybrid role in overlapping responsibilities could also be the OES Director.
3. Promote Assistant City Manager Lon Peterson to City Manager at his current pay, pending formal review. Peterson has shown professionalism and deserves a chance — but under tighter public oversight and expectations this aligns with his work experience and résumé.
4. Expand Public Works Director Bryan McAlister’s role to include cross-department coordination, supporting Peterson and modeling the kind of integrated leadership Taylor and Falconi once embodied and this too aligns with his work experience and education.
5. Mandate public transparency for all executive pay — including full disclosures of benefits, pensions, and title changes — with quarterly reporting and line-item visibility in the budget.
This is not about personality. It’s about stewardship. It’s about restoring trust, efficiency, and accountability.
A City Worth Fighting For
Nevada City is not just a relic of the past. It’s a functioning city with real challenges — housing, infrastructure, fiscal health — and it cannot afford to spend half its discretionary capacity on an executive bubble that delivers so little in return.
We are a city of volunteers, teachers, artists, firefighters, and community-builders. Our government must reflect that ethic — not the worst habits of a disconnected bureaucracy.
The people are watching.
We want real answers, not just raises.
We want service, not self-service.
And we want our Council to remember: It’s our money. It’s our city. And you serve at our consent — not your own discretion.
