By Jorge Casuso

May 23, 2025 -- After a five-month search, the City Council announced Friday it has selected 45-year-old Irvine City Manager Oliver Chi to run Santa Monica, marking the fifth city where he holds the top post.

Oliver Chi (Courtesy City of Santa Monica)

Chi, who was first hired as a city manager when he was 27 by the City of Rosemead, has seen a meteoric rise that has not been without controversy, according to news reports.

Once described as "an out-sized personality," Chi has the "talent, skills and vision to address the city’s most pressing needs and lead us into the future," Mayor Lana Negrete said in a statement.

As Santa Monica’s city manager, Chi will oversee a total City budget of $789.9 million and a workforce of more than 2,000 employees. He will become Santa Monica's first Asian American City Manager.

During his four-year tenure in Irvine, Chi "focused on developing a thriving, team-oriented workplace culture of excellence," City officials said in a press release Friday.

"His leadership philosophy centers on cultivating organizational health, empowering staff and driving mission-focused results."

Before assuming the post in Irvine, Chi served as Huntington Beach City Manager for two years, from 2019 to 2021, where Councilmembers credited him with leading the City through a number of crises and leaving it with a budget surplus, according to the San Gabriel Valley Tribune.

Huntington Beach City Councilman Mike Posey said that Chi “has an out-sized personality.” He called Chi " energetic, exuberant, charismatic –- all those things. He could take control of a roomful of angry citizens and they would all leave less angry.”

But reviews from past officials and residents haven't always been so glowing, and Chi has been at the center of controversies in Monrovia and Huntington Beach.

In 2009, Chi was removed from his first post as city manager of Rosemead by a 4 to 1 vote, according to the Los Angeles Daily News. Chi agreed to resign with a severance package of more than $334,000

A decade later as city manager of Huntington Beach, Chi was accused of asking the City's Chief Information Officer to conduct an improper search of the City Attoney's email, according to the Daily Pilot.

Chi said he was asked by a City Councilmember to look into the situation and that neither he nor the city did anything wrong.

In Santa Monica, Chi will assume the post held on an interim basis by Elaine Polachek after City Manager David White resigned in February ("City Fills 2 Key Posts," January 22, 2025).

Chi becomes the fifth City Manager to hold the post since Rick Cole was pressured to resign in April 2020, one month after the pandemic began, after proposing drastic budget cuts that were eventually made.

As city manager, Chi will be charged with navigating a financial crisis that prompted the Council in March to float extraordinary ways to balance its upcoming budget ("Council Floats Bold Moves to Balance Budget," March 10, 2025).

Chi also assumes he post in the midst of an intensifying battle between housing and park advocates over the future of the Santa Monica Airport site.

The City also is facing a third round of child sex abuse lawsuits that already have cost $230 million in settlements and negotiating contracts with the City's major unions.

Chi is slated to assume the post on July 14 with an annual salary of $410,604. The City Council is set to formally approve his contract at its May 27 meeting.

“I am overwhelmingly humbled and so exceptionally grateful for this opportunity to serve a city as dynamic and iconic as Santa Monica,” Chi said in a statement Friday.

“To have this opportunity to join the city organization -- which has an unmatched legacy of civic innovation and an authentic commitment to core progressive human values that truly matter -- is just an absolute honor."

Chi holds a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Southern California (USC) and a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

He is married to his college sweetheart, Bobbie Jo, and they have two children, Ian, 12, and Avery, 8.