La Palma City Manager Represents City in Australia

By Larry Caballero

As La Palma Mayor Mark Waldman and Councilmember Henry Charoen were preparing for their trip to Korea to visit sister city Hanam, City Manager Dominic Lazzaretto was packing his bags for Sydney, Australia, as part of an Australia Exchange Program sponsored by the League of California Cities and local government managers for their 100th Annual Conference Sept. 15-18.
The program promoted international cooperation and gave managers the opportunity to exchange best practices and management ideas while learning the similarities and differences in issues they must deal with on a daily basis. Lazzaretto attended workshops and heard from keynote motivational speakers and local government leaders before touring local communities outside of Sydney.
“Our number one issue dealt with water shortage and droughts,” said Lazzaretto, who talked to local officials about the options available to them in addressing their concerns. He tried to visit small cities that were comparable to La Palma in size, population or geography, and found a large number of Asian residents along with Greek and Italian. Overall, it was a good learning experience for him and he enjoyed visiting Australia, except for a dust storm that engulfed Sidney while he was there. “It had to happen while I was there. It was the worst dust storm in 70 years.”