After one month in the city’s top job, P. Lamont Ewell has developed a concrete viewpoint on where Culver City finds itself as it closes in on the conclusion of the 2009-2010 fiscal year.

“A very vibrant city with a lot of wonderful opportunity before it,” said Ewell, who took over as interim city manager April 1 following the surprise resignation of short-time city manager Mark Scott. “An organization that has a lot of talented and committed employees, and a very sucky economy that is literally causing a concern about our ability to manage at a current level.”

It’s that final element that has had Ewell working in overdrive since setting up shop on the third floor of City Hall. He knows he’s only going to be on the city payroll for a short time — committed through the end of July while the city continues its search for a full-time city manager. However, now is a time when the top city staffer wields great power, as a plan is being put in place to help Culver City deal with projected budget shortfalls of between $3 million and $5 million for each of the next two fiscal years.

To that very point, Ewell is looking at the necessary corrective action as a two-year plan necessary to help the city return to financial stability. He plans to release the proposed 2010-2011 budget May 17 before formally presenting it to the Culver City City Council one week later. From there, it will be an ongoing process featuring council meetings and a public hearing, and likely a fair share of tweaks, before it can be formally adopted and put into action.

“It’s pretty clear we’ll be recommending reductions,” Ewell said. “My objective will be to recommend to the council a strategy for reducing that deficit over the next two years. If everything were to go well over the next two years, the city will be on a much more solid foundation, but still not out of the woods just yet. …

“What I’m approving is a two-year approach to how to solve this. If we tried to do it all at once it would just be too devastating to service levels.”

That commitment to maintaining services to the best of the city’s ability is also the reason Ewell is in favor of taking a broad-based approach to the budget crisis rather than gutting a handful of departments in a quick-fix maneuver to balance the books.

As bleak as the situation may seem here locally, Ewell — who has previously served as city manager in San Diego and Santa Monica — pointed to some of the proposed cuts he’s hearing via officials in other municipalities as evidence that Culver City has the pieces in place to again thrive after embarking on a road to recovery.

“The city really does have a great future,” Ewell said. “The revitalization that’s occurred here is considerable. It has a brighter future than most cities. This too shall pass.”