The Irvine City Council promoted from within to fill the city’s top executive position, this week dropping interim from City Manager Sean Crumby’s title.
In July, Crumby, who was Irvine’s assistant city manager at the time, was asked to fill in the vacancy left by Oliver Chi, who accepted the city manager position with Santa Monica.
Just four months later, Irvine councilmembers unanimously supported making Crumby just the seventh city manager to oversee the daily operations of Orange County’s second-most populated city. He will receive an annual salary of $434,242, which city officials said was in line with Chi’s compensation.
“He demonstrated himself as an assistant city manager to be hard-charging, super competent, with many projects underway and completed that had lagged for a great period,” Mayor Larry Agran said, also calling it a “tremendous advantage” to be able to promote a strong candidate from within.
“Historically, we’ve had searches, we’ve had promotions from within,” Agran said in response to some questioning the council’s decision not to conduct an open recruitment for the position. “Yes, we could have done a search. I think the people on the dais at the time felt, on an interim basis, Sean Crumby would demonstrate he would be an outstanding city manager. He did indeed demonstrate that.”
Crumby has nearly three decades of executive leadership experience in municipal government, city officials said, including as director of public works for the city of Huntington Beach, assistant city manager and public works director for the city of Seal Beach, and multiple leadership positions in Long Beach.
Since joining Irvine City Hall in 2023, Crumby has been overseeing public works, transportation and sustainability operations, including the $1 billion development of the Great Park.
“He’s proven to be a very capable steward,” Councilmember Melinda Liu said. “He truly cares, you can see he truly cares about the city, about its development.”
Crumby’s contract will be for three-year increments and he will be eligible for the benefits and raises available to other members of the city’s management. According to his contract, if the council decided to terminate him without cause, he would be owed 12 months severance.
“It has been a privilege to serve the Irvine community in an interim capacity, and I am both humbled and honored to continue as Irvine’s next City Manager,” Crumby said in a statement. “It’s an incredible honor to help lead this great city, one that continues to set the standard for innovation, sustainability, and quality of life.”
