Mr. McClendon was the Planning Director for Los Angeles County from 2006 to 2009. Previous to that, he served at the director level in Orange and Hillsborough Counties in Florida. Additionally, he has served as the director of planning for the Texas Cities of Galveston, Beaumont, Arlington, and Forth Worth. Mr. McClendon has a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Missouri and a master’s degree in regional and city planning from the University of Oklahoma, with an emphasis on economic development. He has been elected and served for two terms as the national president of the American Planning Association and is a charter member and fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners. Mr. McClendon is an accomplished author, with over 100 articles in over 50 different publications. His book Customer Service in Local Government is the definitive source on the subject. Mr. McClendon worked with Citygate on a number of community development consulting engagements, including Sacramento County and San Diego County, as well as jointly presenting “Performance Auditing of Community Development Departments” at an APA conference. Mr. McClendon passed away in January 2017.
“I was absolutely thrilled with the report because it was very comprehensive, very detailed. I call it the ‘time-in-motion study’ almost and some of the aspects [are] ‘how does your paper flow? How can you make your processes better? . . . As a government agency, how can we provide better service to the constituents?’ And to us we think that this study identifies those things down to all of the small paper processes and flows.”
Retired City Manager City of Vista, CA
“I wanted to offer my compliments to Citygate, to Mr. Gary for this very comprehensive report.”
San Luis Obispo Council Member
“We work with consultants, obviously, all the time, but the work that Citygate did on this report is some of the best I’ve seen in my tenure here.”
Retired Chief Administrative Officer San Diego County
“I think Citygate has done a great job. It seems like you’ve been most thorough and even-handed in your evaluations and you’ve given us certainly a lot of suggestions and guidelines to work with.”
City of Vista, CA
“Thank you so much for all you have done. And it’s so comprehensive, I know it’s going to take a while for us to digest it all, but I think you’ve come up with some really good recommendations.”
Pro Tempore City of Vista, CA
“[Stu Gary’s] knowledge, expertise, and demeanor were invaluable in our efforts to ferret out a fair agreement with the City. I could go on and on about Stu, but you already know all of the superlatives.”
AAE, General Manager Monterey Regional Airport
