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COMMUNITY Vista City Manager Rita Geldert to Retire Written by Jeff Brownlee


Outgoing Vista City Manager Rita Gel- dert summed up her 17 years of service to the city this way, “It has been an amazing job. I feel truly blessed to have been able to serve Vista.”


During Geldert’s tenure the city experi- enced tremendous growth. Geldert believes that this growth has made Vista a more de- sirable place to live and do business. As evi- dence of this, she cites Vista’s increasingly stable population saying, “Generations are opting to stay in Vista.”


Geldert will retire in December. She was appointed city manager for the City of Vista in 1997 after serving three years as assistant city manager. Her career in public service has spanned more than 36 years, primarily in local government.


Rita Geldert is one of the finest city man- agers in the state,” said Mayor Judy Ritter, “her departure will be deeply felt. Under her


administration, Vista has weathered the country’s most severe economic downturn in decades, and she has been instrumental in overseeing the consolidation of departments and services that will benefit us well into the future.”


As city manager, Geldert was charged with overseeing every aspect of what makes a city function. Geldert spoke of a few of the initiatives she presided over.


She named Vista’s Business Park and Vista Village as triumphs of both local economic and cultural growth. Vista Village's diverse offerings are intended to provide Vista resi- dents with the opportunity to shop and play in the same area. “Vista Village was designed to keep people in Vista,” Geldert said. She is proud of the city’s ability to promote the growth of businesses. “We offer fast and expeditious action on permits, and the community development department will


even help people find locations in town,” Geldert said.


Vista’s economic growth has been matched in the area of the arts. “We have a large con- tingent of people interested in the arts,” Geldert observed. One well-known symbol of Vista’s artistic bent is the Moonlight Amphitheatre.


In addition to presenting Vistans with plays and musicals, it is fast becoming fa- mous as a venue for the theater arts. Geldert described the venue’s elevated status: “Vista’s Moonlight Amphitheatre is the jewel of North County.”


Geldert described the job of city manager as “being the CEO of a corporation.” How- ever, running a city involves a level of trust and cooperation far beyond that found in the corporate world.


“You are using other people’s money, and all decisions must be made in public,”


44 VISTA MAGAZINE


www.vistachamber.org


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