County employees threw him a small goodbye party and three supervisors offered words of thanks and a standard-issue Ventura County baseball cap.
For the most part, however, county Chief Administrator Lin Koester is departing for his Oregon fishing cabin in the same quiet, understated way he has overseen the county's $955-million budget and 7,000-person work force over the past four years.
So quietly that the 58-year-old bureaucrat who steered the county through some of the stormiest times in its 126-year history refused requests to even talk about his tenure, saying he wants to focus on the future. But friends said his low-key departure disguises the fact that while he may be looking forward to retirement, he is disturbed that he was unable to move the county past the political infighting surrounding the deeply troubled mental health agency.
"He's got a lot of mixed feelings. There's a lot of things he didn't see through," said Simi Valley City Manager Mike Sedell, a longtime friend. "But he realizes now is the good time and the right time to leave."
Koester will spend his last day today taking a few meetings and cleaning out his office.
Friday, Koester will board a plane for Oregon, where he will finish building his cabin, practice his fly-fishing technique and, acquaintances say, attempt to put the most acrimonious year of his three decades in public service behind him.
"It's a shame that all of his energy these past few months has gone to balancing a negative situation," said Supervisor Judy Mikels, a close ally of Koester. "But I truly believe it's to Lin's credit that it hasn't gotten worse."
The county's Behavioral Health Department has been the focus of a firestorm of criticism and of numerous state and federal investigations since the Board of Supervisors decided against Koester's advice to combine its mental health and social service agencies.
Facing the loss of millions of dollars in Medicare funds, the board later scrapped the merger. Since then, warring camps in county government have blamed each other for the mess and disagreed over how to fix the problems.
So far, the county has lost $15.3 million. By the time the damage is finally cleaned up, the bill could reach $20 million or more, the worst blow to the county's budget in history.
