Riverside City Manager Mike Futrell has agreed to step down, capping off months of political turmoil in the Inland Empire’s largest city.
Futrell has resigned from the role effective July 5, the city announced Tuesday after the City Council met behind closed doors.
In a statement posted to social media, Futrell called his departure “part of a mutually agreed upon leadership transition.”
“I leave with gratitude for the privilege of serving and with great confidence in the city’s future,” he wrote.
Futrell has been placed on paid administrative leave until his departure date, and the city has agreed to pay him severance in a lump sum equivalent to nine months of his regular salary and retirement contributions and one month of health benefits, Riverside Mayor Pro Tem Steven Robillard reported at the public portion of Tuesday’s City Council meeting.
It was the second time Futrell has announced he’s leaving the city in recent months, his last departure upended by a political kerfuffle involving his wife and Riverside City Hall staff. In April, he said he’d accepted a job as city manager of Pasadena but did an about-face after the emergence of a letter in which the Riverside City Council accused his wife, Susan Freeman, of harassing municipal employees. She denies the allegations.
Freeman filed a government claim, a precursor to a lawsuit, over the letter last week, alleging the city investigated her without due process in retaliation for her social-media criticism of the Trump administration. She agreed to drop the claim Tuesday, signing a settlement agreement and release of claims.
“This experience has tested me, changed me, and reminded me of the importance of standing firmly in one’s truth while also recognizing when it is time to close a door,” Freeman wrote in a statement posted to social media.
Assistant City Manager Edward Enriquez will serve as acting city manager during the search for a permanent replacement for Futrell, officials announced Wednesday at a press conference.
The city also has finalized an agreement with a new city attorney, James Johnson, officials said. He replaces former city attorney Phaedra Norton, who filed a lawsuit alleging she was terminated last year after she reported that a City Council member had leaked confidential information to a friend who was suing the city.
Futrell’s departure comes as Riverside officials face criticism over the city’s handling of an internal investigation alleging two of its senior code enforcement officers engaged in physical altercations with street vendors and improperly seized their property — and that supervisors retaliated against a whistleblower who reported the conduct.
City officials are also grappling with voters’ rejection of a ballot measure to increase and extend the city sales tax, which officials had said they wanted to use to fund an overhaul of the fire department. Some observers described the outcome as a referendum on city leadership.
“The voters of Riverside clearly said, ‘we don’t trust you with our dollars. You are not being fiscally responsible to us,’” said Dan Hoxworth, co-chair of the Affordable Housing Organizing Network of Riverside.
He pointed out that Riverside is under investigation by the California Civil Rights Department over allegations that it violated anti-discrimination laws when it rejected a $20-million state grant to fund a permanent affordable housing project. The City Council voted against the project despite many public comments supporting it, he said.
Futrell has served as city manager since 2023 and is credited with leading Riverside out of the post-COVID era, according to a news release issued by the city the first time he announced he was leaving. He expanded economic development efforts and helped advance several major projects, including a new library, police department headquarters and agricultural innovation center, the release states.
But Futrell also faced setbacks. He recently presented a city budget proposal containing nearly $18 million in cuts, citing slowing revenue growth and rising payroll, pension and other costs.
In a statement, Robillard thanked Futrell for his service. “Riverside has tremendous momentum, and I remain optimistic about the direction of our city,” he wrote.
Riverside has a history of hiring outside city managers, some of whom have departed after brief tenures, according to Ben Clymer and Malissa McKeith, the former chair and vice chair of the city’s Charter Review Commission.
For the record:
4:12 p.m. June 17, 2026A previous version of this article misspelled the first name of Riverside’s previous city manager as Art Zelinka. It is Al Zelinka.
Futrell was preceded by Al Zelinka, who served from 2018 to 2023, when he departed to become city manager of Huntington Beach. Before that, John Russo was city manager from 2015 to 2018, when he was terminated after his high pay drew scrutiny and led to then-Mayor Rusty Bailey filing a lawsuit against the city.
The turnover has made it difficult to address long-term challenges facing Riverside, Clymer and McKeith wrote in a statement submitted to the City Council on Tuesday.
During Futrell’s tenure, for example, residents raised concerns about a draw down of city reserves and alleged public-utilities mismanagement, among other issues, they wrote.
“Whether one agrees with those criticisms or not, they represent matters of legitimate public concern that deserved serious examination and were largely ignored,” the letter said.
They also pointed out that executive contracts are negotiated in closed session and include compensation that typically goes beyond what private citizens make, while taxpayers bear the financial burden of city settlements, including long-term pension obligations.
“The recent ‘comings and goings’ of the Futrells highlight the need for serious reform of executive compensation,” they wrote.