Maria Kachadoorian, city manager of the county’s second-largest city, announced Friday she is retiring in October.
Chula Vista city leaders are expected to begin discussions for her replacement on Tuesday, according to an agenda the city released Friday, which indicates the City Council will discuss the matter in a closed session.
Kachadoorian began her career in the city’s finance department in 1998, advancing through the ranks to become the finance director. She then became deputy city manager and later the assistant city manager. In June 2020, the City Council appointed her city manager, overseeing more than a dozen city departments and over 1,300 public employees. She is Chula Vista’s first woman and Latina to serve in the role. Before ing the South County municipality, she worked for the county’s Office of the Auditor and Controller.
“I will forever be grateful to have served as the City Manager for the City of Chula Vista,” she said in a statement. “Although we faced many challenges, we refused to let them get in the way of achieving our potential as a City leading regional economic development opportunities resulting in a better quality of life for our residents.”
Kachadoorian and many officials credit her strong background in finance with helping Chula Vista weather the 2008 recession and the COVID-19 pandemic, a time during which she helped secure the deal and groundbreaking of the newly opened and long-awaited $1.3 billion Gaylord Pacific resort and convention center.
Most recently, she proposed Chula Vista’s largest budget to date, which was given initial approval by the City Council. The $600 million budget for 2025-26 is expected to break even amid the possibility of an economic recession, without making deep cuts to public services or using reserves, unlike its neighbor, San Diego, which is considering doing so for the first time in at least a decade.
“I am deeply appreciative of her commitment to improving the quality of life for all Chula Vista and wish her a well-earned retirement,” Mayor John McCann said in a statement.
Kachadoorian’s employment contract expires at the end of June.
The City Council, which holds the sole power to appoint or remove the city manager, approved in October 2022 to extend her contract through June 2025 with annual salary increases of 5%. Her salary jumped to $315,000 in 2023 and $330,700 in 2024.
