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Santee City Manager Marlene Best (left)
By Mike Allen
April 18, 2025 (Santee) – Marlene Best, Santee’s city manager for the past nine years, is leaving the job effective April 23.
Following a closed session of the Santee City Council on April 18, Mayor John Minto announced he will sign a separation agreement with Best, and begin the process of looking for a new permanent city manager, and hiring an interim city manager.
“I can’t tell you a whole lot because this is a personnel matter,” Minto said.
The Council did line up an interim city manager candidate but he declined the offer, and another interim city manager is being sought, he said.
The city will be hiring an executive search firm and conduct a nationwide search. The process usually takes about four months, Minto said.
Best was hired in February 2016 and is only the fourth city manager in Santee’s history. She was city manager of the city of Imperial for nine years before taking the Santee job. Before that she managed the city of Calexico for 18 months. Her most recent salary was $269,000.
Attempts to reach Best by phone and email were unsuccessful.
From observing recent council meetings, there seemed to be no apparent conflict with the council, and she never mentioned any plans to retire.
However, Best, a resident of Lemon Grove and graduate of Helix High School, is 64, and may be ready to leave the work world.
Santee last replaced its city manager in May of 2014 when the council terminated longtime manager Keith Till. It then hired a couple of interim city managers until Best was hired.
On the city’s website, Best extolled the small-town feel of Santee while its population has exploded in recent years to more than 60,000.
“While the city has grown and changed dramatically in recent decades, we have managed to maintain a small-town-friendly demeanor,” Best said.
That fast growth has been good and bad. It’s helped Santee to maintain a strong financial position but has created some tension concerning traffic snarls and the prospect of even more residents.
A 3,000 unit project called Fanita Ranch in the city’s northwest section has been trying to get underway for decades but has been met with strong opposition from environmentalists and many residents who want Santee to remain a “small town.”
Santee, which incorporated in 1980, has a general fund budget of about $64 million and a staff of 156 full-time workers. That’s up from a budget of $48.7 million and 131 full-time equivalent workers in June 2020.
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