Sean Joyce to Return as Irvine’s City Manager

Photo of Sean Joyce from his LinkedIn page

Two months after current City Manager Sean Crumby announced his plans to step down, the City has hired Sean Joyce to be Irvine’s new City Manager. Joyce is expected to begin in mid-August.

Joyce served as Irvine’s City Manager for 13 years, including during the Great Recession, one of the most significant economic downturns in recent U.S. history. Joyce is widely credited with developing Irvine’s “Bridge Plan,” a three-year financial strategy adopted in 2009 to help the City navigate the Great Recession. The plan was designed to stabilize Irvine’s finances by drawing upon the City’s “Rainy Day Reserves” and minimizing impacts on residents and City employees. The strategy was built on four guiding principles:

No new taxes
No reductions in core City services
No layoffs of City employees
No employee pay raises

The Bridge Plan allowed Irvine to outperform its budget projections, avoid the municipal bankruptcies that affected several California cities during the recession, and ultimately rebuild its emergency reserves to levels greater than before the economic downturn.