Communication ID’d as priority for next city manager

Don Harkey: The city must move at the pace of entrepreneurship.

Brandon Jenson: The right city manager candidate will be charismatic and engaging.

Matt Morrow: A partnership mindset is needed in city leadership.

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What does Springfield need in its next city manager? In the job description, one of the top requirements is a big-picture view for the community.

For some stakeholders, however, the main criterion is the willingness to build a culture of communication.

The search process – spearheaded by professional recruiting firm Strategic Government Resources, based in Keller, Texas – led to 75 applicants by the Feb. 2 deadline, according to city officials. But Mayor Ken McClure said late last month that City Council does not have a hiring timeline for the position that’s been without a permanent leader since Jan. 12.

The initial timeline set by the city and its recruitment firm called for on-site interviews of finalists in March or April, suggesting hiring would be completed by the current mayor and City Council.

However, a new mayor will be elected April 8, and four of the eight regular council positions are also on the ballot, two of them in contested races. The new council will be sworn in April 14.

“There is no specific timeline, as we are taking the time we need to fully consider all applications and evaluate those interested in an efficient yet comprehensive way,” McClure said in a news release. “We will continue to update the public on our progress.”

The last time the city hired a city manager, Jason Gage in 2018, on-site interviews were held roughly six and a half weeks after the close of applications, and Gage started immediately after Greg Burris’ last day in the role.

The job description states what City Council is looking for in its next top executive: “A solutions-oriented leader, who can filter through the ‘noise’ and take calculated risks, is highly desired. The chosen candidate will be able to use the assets in the community to promote the city from an economic development perspective and assist with job growth, development and redevelopment in all areas of the community.

“Someone who can build bridges and trust in the community, as well as lead and mentor staff, is preferred.”

According to the job description, the new city manager’s salary will start at $350,000, approximately 31% more than Gage made at the time of his departure in January.

Multiple SBJ requests to elected officials for an explanation to the public of the higher salary either went unanswered or were declined.

Culture of leadership
Don Harkey, co-founder and CEO of Springfield-based People Centric Consulting Group LLC, said he hears a hopeful tone among business leaders about the city’s future.

“I’m hoping for a leader for the city that is mindful of developing a culture of leadership and empowerment and collaboration with various entities inside the city,” he said.

Harkey said Springfield is a collaborative city, and that has been a difference-maker in its growth.

In Harkey’s view, Gage knew a whole lot about municipal government, and that was one of his key strengths. It’s an asset that matches the current job description, which says “special preference to experience in and knowledge of municipal administration.” But a highly detailed understanding of the ins and outs of government isn’t necessarily what the city needs, Harkey said.

“I worry sometimes that we think the city manager needs to be an absolute expert at running the city,” he said. “Jason was fantastic and extremely knowledgeable, but we need somebody who’s really, really good at building a team.”

Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce President Matt Morrow prioritizes speed as a top consideration in the next city manager.

“There are some things that probably could move more at the speed of business in our local government here, and I think that there’s a desire on City Council to address that,” Morrow said. “I suspect that would be a significant part of the conversation with the new city manager.”

Morrow made his comments at a media roundtable event on March 26, adding he’s optimistic that the city manager will work in partnership with the business community, particularly as new zoning codes are implemented.

It’s not the first time Morrow has talked about the importance of who is hired as the next city manager.

“This critical decision could unlock economic opportunities and address key challenges,” wrote Morrow in an opinion piece published in SBJ in January.

He outlined the essential job skills for the hire, the top of which was intentional board management strategy. The final candidate should prioritize cultivating trust with and among City Council members. “He or she should have a plan and strategy to learn what each council member needs and wants most, identify what success looks like to them and strive to find common ground,” Morrow wrote.

He also emphasized a proactive partnership mindset and said the goal should be for the city manager to work with partners early on projects, solutions and plans – “Ideally months or years ahead” – so that everyone involved in outcomes understand how to support collective success.

Harkey echoes that need for engagement. A city manager has to be out in the community, he said, meeting people and also empowering other people in city offices to do the same. This has diminished some in recent years, Harkey said, adding he isn’t sure why.

“They need to unleash the organization itself,” he said. “A lot of people that work for the city of Springfield are people who have a really good vision for what needs to happen in a lot of different areas. Working for the right city manager, those people will be empowered to make the decisions they need to make aligned around a strategic plan and vision for the city.”

It was just over a year ago when Harkey addressed City Council to tell them that the city needs to be easier to work with.

In the council-manager form of government that the city operates under, the city manager oversees day-to-day operations, meaning complications experienced by businesses or members of the public in dealing with the government are largely the city manager’s problem to solve.

Harkey told council the city needs to create a climate that supports growth rather than placing barriers in the path of entrepreneurs.

At the time, Harkey offered a story from his own business. He wanted to hang a 2-foot-wide sign outside his Walnut Street office, but he was required to get $3 million worth of insurance coverage to do so. At the time, there was some debate about whether that level of coverage was still what the city required – it turns out it wasn’t; the law had been changed, Harkey said.

When Harkey queried city staff about the matter, it was elevated to the office of the city attorney, and Harkey was told he would have to purchase that coverage or risk the closure of his business, he said.

Harkey – who specializes in workplace culture – told council the incident showed him something was broken within the city culture. The city needs to move at the pace of entrepreneurship, he said.

He suggested to council that they engage the energy and know-how of the city’s entrepreneurs to try to solve problems.

At the time, Gage said the city had hired a development project facilitator, Samantha Payne, to work out of his office and help with situations like Harkey’s sign issue.

In a recent interview, Sean Thouvenot, an owner and vice president of construction firm Branco Enterprises Inc., expressed enthusiasm about the work Payne is doing.

“They’ve got some good people in place,” Thouvenot said of the city, “but they need some other people – long-term people – to listen to new ideas.”

Thouvenot also said he had a good working relationship with Gage. He praised the former city manager’s willingness to listen and engage with different groups and said the next city manager should do the same.

“That person needs to be out and about a little more,” he said. “In that position, you need to be out meeting businesspeople and developers – meeting the people who are trying to grow your city, people who have real-life problems.”

Not everyone shared Thouvenot’s level of satisfaction with communication where the city is concerned.

In a February meeting of the Ozark Region Workforce Development Board, poor communication was cited as a reason for an ongoing rift between that board and the city.

During the meeting, board member Kevin McGill of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 453 mentioned Gage by name as the reason for a communication barrier that led to the ongoing friction.

McGill suggested that things could improve with the hiring of a new city manager.

“Maybe if we hit a reset and see if things are a little more cooperative, we might be well served to just continue on that direction,” he said at the time.

Council mostly mum
City officials were mum on hiring details in the weeks leading up to the mayor’s news release on March 27 giving an update on the city manager hiring process.

Over a period of two weeks, SBJ emailed and phoned multiple city officials and officeholders requesting the timeline for a hire, and the mayor’s public statement was the first response to the query.

When SBJ wrote to the mayor and members of council to ask them about the qualities that are desirable in a city manager, McClure pointed to the job description to provide answers, and only three of the eight members of council responded. Councilmember Abe McGull declined to comment, saying he did not want to taint the important collective decision council would soon be facing but adding he would be glad to talk after the selection was made.

Councilmember Derek Lee also declined to respond outside of saying he has faith the council “will get the right guy.”

In an interview, Councilmember Brandon Jenson was forthright about the qualities needed in a city manager and said the job description gets it right.

Jenson said the city manager’s communicative role could be categorized into three functions, the top of these being communicating with the public.

“The right candidate needs to be charismatic and engaging – someone who can really bring the public along with the things that we’re trying to achieve and generate buy-in with in the vision laid out in Forward SGF,” he said, referring to the city’s 20-year comprehensive plan.

The other two functions are communication internally in the city and with council.

Inside the city building, Jenson said, the city manager needs to be open to feedback and ideas for improvement from the workforce, and that person also needs to make sure city staff understand the city’s shared vision for what it’s trying to achieve.

In communicating with council, Jenson said, the city manager must share any relevant updates about the city’s workforce or any other information that’s important for council members to be aware of while fulfilling its policymaking duties.

New perspective
The city’s next mayor, who will be selected during the April 8 election, will likely lead the hiring process. Both candidates, Mary Collette and Jeff Schrag, prioritized communication in the hire.

Collette, who is a strong advocate for Commercial Street residents and businesses, praised Gage’s performance when he began in the position.

“He was coming up here, meeting with us on C-Street, on a monthly basis, and then all of a sudden everything just kind of stopped,” she said.

Collette, an eight-year member of City Council, noted she knows many people on the city’s staff, and many of these felt communication in City Hall has been lacking.

“In the conversations I did have, a lot of city staff – who will remain unnamed – were not happy with the lack of teamwork and lack of communication,” she said.

Schrag said council’s single most important job is hiring and overseeing a city manager.

“We’re a collaborative community in Springfield – we pride ourselves on that,” he said. “Communication is the lifeblood of that, and having a manager that doesn’t communicate well is never going to work. Council’s job is to figure that out pretty quickly and either give that person the incentive and the tools to achieve or go a different direction.”

Schrag said in an ideal world, the mayor and council are the political arm of government, and the city manager and staff represent the operational level. The city manager needs to keep an eye on the future and on what is needed to move the city forward, he said.

Schrag added Springfield might improve by 2% – “but if competitive cities are improving by 5%, it doesn’t take long to fall way behind, even though we’re constantly improving,” he said.

‘Tall order’
One person who has expressed strong opinions about qualities needed in the next city leader is the former city leader himself. Gage told SBJ in a January exit interview that bold measures are needed to move the city forward, and he added that the Springfield public is strongly supportive when leaders do what they say they’re going to do.

“We have not been bold,” Gage said. “We have a hard time being bold in Springfield. Our leadership in our community is scared to death of bold decisions.”

The next city manager will lead one of the area’s largest employers with 2,450 staff and a budget of $507 million. The role will lead a community with a new City Council and mayor, a newly adopted comprehensive plan and city code, and an eager business community poised for growth.

Three key priorities were identified by council for the next city manager, the mayor states: fostering economic growth by creating good-paying jobs to retain younger residents, working strategically to diversify city revenue sources and expanding the local job portfolio to reflect a more diverse economy.

“We have been asked what we are looking for in Springfield’s next leader,” McClure said in the release late last month. “As the city is the most functionally diverse organization in the community, it is a pretty tall order.”