Divided vote likely for city manager hire

Springfield City Council appears divided over the appointment of David Cameron as city manager.

Council’s May 19 meeting included a public hearing in which members of the business community voiced their support for Cameron’s hire, while some members of council expressed concerns about the candidate and the deliberation and hiring process.

Councilmember Brandon Jenson said he plans to vote against Cameron for the city manager role. He said he had expected to attract a more experienced candidate from out of market when he and other members of council last year approved a 31% bump in pay for the role compared with former City Manager Jason Gage’s exit salary.

Other council members, including Monica Horton, Craig Hosmer and Bruce Adib-Yazdi, also expressed reservations about either Cameron or the process for approving him, although they stopped short of saying how they plan to vote on May 27.

Cameron was tapped as the top choice among three finalists selected from a pool of 75 applicants for the role, according to past Springfield Business Journal reporting. If approved, Cameron would come to the city after a nine-year stretch leading Republic, a city with a population of approximately 20,000 and an operating budget of $60 million. By comparison, Springfield has a population of about 170,000 and proposed operating budget for the next fiscal year of $530 million.

Schrag acknowledged at the council meeting that while he is fully supportive of Cameron’s hire, he would have liked to have steered the selection process from its beginning rather than carrying it forth from the previous council. The finalists were announced the day after the citywide election last month – six months after Gage announced his resignation.

“What I believe in the process that council put forward is the cream rose to the top,” he said. “I believe some excellent people were in that cream at the very top, and I am thrilled to work with David Cameron as our next city manager.”

Jenson said when he agreed to a $350,000 salary for the next city manager, he had a different idea in mind than Cameron.

“A part of my goal was recognizing that our community, we’re sort of on this threshold of thinking of ourselves as a big town, but really, we’re a small city with city problems,” he said. “For me, it was critically important that we, through the recruitment process, ended up with somebody that has experience navigating those complex social and infrastructure problems that only exist within large metros.”

He said it was his understanding that if such a candidate did not emerge, council would be willing to go back to the drawing board.

Councilmember Bruce Adib-Yazdi, who was sworn in after last month’s election, added that with the amplified salary, he, like Jenson, wanted someone with experience in a larger metropolitan area. He said that he was also in the camp that believed council should begin its search anew, but he added that if Cameron is selected, he pledges to support him, even if the finalists’ announcement that came the day after election day came as a shock.

“That was completely out of the blue for me,” he said.

He added that none of the previous work to narrow down the candidate pool or conversations about them were made public.

Jenson noted he has heard two chief concerns from members of the community about Cameron.

“The first is a major concern the lack of neighborhood support for the candidate will deepen the already prevalent belief that the city only listens to one viewpoint,” he said.

The inability to pull the entire community together around the candidate emphasizes the division, he said.

Jenson’s second concern is about Cameron’s embrace of disruptive leadership. Cameron has a consulting business, called Disruptive Leadership LLC. Cameron told Springfield Business Journal this month he would keep the LLC in place but would not do consulting as city manager.

Jenson said disruptive leadership can create transformative, efficient and effective change, but he added it can also demoralize staff and result in worse outcomes.

In multiple interviews with SBJ, Schrag has said that one of his early goals as mayor is to get to the five votes needed from council to confirm hiring Cameron. He was not concerned with the lack of unity for the vote, and he noted that he expects votes in the future to be divided, with him siding with different members of council on various issues.

In the last two hires for city manager, the vote was close to unanimous. Greg Burris was hired after an 8-1 vote by council in 2008, and Gage received an 8-0 vote, with one member absent, in 2018, according to past SBJ reporting and information from city spokesperson Cora Scott.

Councilmember Derek Lee said his biggest concern is the divided council. While he said he shares some of the reservations of his fellow councilmembers, he noted that having a different candidate doesn’t mean there will be a different solution six months from now.

“The differences of opinion that have been expressed here tonight are real,” he said. “We have people that want different leaders.”

Lee, an engineer, said he has worked with Cameron on projects in Republic, and having seen Cameron in action, he can attest to his integrity.

“I got to see real collaboration with public-private partnerships; I got to see it with state agencies, with federal agencies, and I think that that same collaborative effort that I witnessed firsthand over a number of years repeatedly will be the same collaborative effort that will work with our neighborhoods and with our nonprofits and other people,” Lee said.

He said he supports Cameron and looks forward to seeing what he and council can do together to implement council priorities.

Councilmember Callie Carroll said Cameron is collaborative and solutions oriented, holding himself and others accountable, and that’s what she’s looking for in a leader.

Councilmembers Heather Hardinger, Hosmer and Abe McGull did not share their opinion on Cameron for the role of city manager at the meeting.

Business support
Erin Danastasio, representing the charitable Hatch Foundation as its executive director and Leaders for Ozarks Regional Evolvement, or LORE, as its board chair, expressed her organizations’ full support for hiring Cameron during the public comment portion of the May 19 council meeting.

“At the Hatch Foundation, we believe in the power of public-private partnerships to bring innovative, lasting change to our community,” she said. “We see David as a true advocate for these kinds of partnerships.”

From LORE’s perspective, she said Cameron is a courageous leader who empowers individuals and embraces regionalism.

“We need leadership that is positive and forward-thinking and rooted in the true belief in our community, and we believe that David Cameron represents that kind of leadership,” she said.

Jaimie Trussell, CEO of Crosslines Community Outreach, formerly Council of Churches of the Ozarks, offered her organization’s support of Cameron as well.

“I know firsthand that David’s leadership will bring a level of grit, integrity, determination and a new measure of vitality to the important work of city government,” she said.

Bob Helm, a partner with Elliott, Robinson & Co. LLP and chair of the board of the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce, said he had spent time with the three finalists for the role – Cameron, city Aviation Director Brian Weiler and former Roanoke City Manager Bob Cowell – and he found them all to be passionate and qualified.

He said his firm has had a location in Republic since 2015.

“The citizens of Republic are better today, in my opinion, than where they were prior to his time there,” Helm said, adding that Cameron is a bold, confident problem-solver.

Allen Kunkel, associate vice president for economic development at Missouri State University, said he has been on the Republic Enterprise Zone board for two decades.

“Watching that community grow during David’s tenure is amazing, not just only in the growth of the community, but also how professional staff has become,” he said.

Other members of the business community weighed in earlier in the selection process. SBJ received a copy of a letter of recommendation from Max Buetow, president and CEO of CoxHealth, representing the executive committee of the CoxHealth Board of Directors: Rob Fulp, Sally Hargis, Hal Higdon, Larry Lipscomb and Jeff Tines.

Buetow said in the letter that Cameron challenges people to think differently, noting, “Springfield needs a city manager who can bring people together around a shared vision, drive execution and genuinely care about the community and the people serving it. That’s David Cameron.”

There was one voice of dissent among the public speakers. Kevin Evans, a Phelps Grove neighborhood resident and a professor of geology at MSU, voiced his opposition to Cameron’s candidacy.

Evans said having two of the three finalists in the national search hail from Greene County is short-sighted. He said Cameron’s experience – in Republic and in Siloam Springs, Arkansas – are in cities that are not comparable in population to Springfield.

Additionally, Evans said, council should be unanimous in its decision, and the public does not know if that is the case.

“In my opinion, this should be a failed search, and you should start all over again,” he said.

Vote timing
Council is veering from its standard procedure of holding a first reading and public hearing for an ordinance during a regular meeting and then voting on it at the next meeting, usually two weeks later. However, an aberration in council’s meeting calendar – approved before the year began – puts the next regular meeting on June 9, three weeks away.

The city’s announcement of Cameron’s selection for the city manager role contained an error. It said the vote would be held May 27, a Tuesday and not a regular council meeting day. Schrag decided, with continued objection from some council members, to keep the vote on May 27.

At least one member of council – McGull – anticipated being absent on June 9.

In addition to the change in standard procedure for the vote, Horton raised a concern about direction from Schrag that she said violates city code.

Horton said Schrag wrote a May 16 email to council members and instructed them to speak only during the May 19 meeting and not before their vote at the May 27 special meeting.

But Horton said members of the public continue to weigh in with their elected representatives, and she intends to hear them out.

“I will reserve my final remarks, if I have any at all, on this contract for the second reading, pursuant to section 2.38, number 6, of the municipal code, which makes provision for council members to discuss any council bill prior to any final vote,” Horton said. 

Hosmer challenged Schrag about the basis for putting the issue to the vote on May 27. It was a concern he also raised at the May 15 special council meeting, when Schrag proposed the early vote.

Schrag said, “I personally believe this is a time-sensitive bill. I believe that getting within a 30-day window of hiring a new manager is just cutting it too close.”

Hosmer replied that Cameron is not available to begin until July 7. He asked if Schrag perceived an emergency situation, but Schrag replied that a lot of dominos have to fall into place for the hire to happen.

Schrag has stated a goal for the city to run more at the speed of business, and his choice to keep the vote on the tight timeline of May 27 seems to fall in line with that style of leadership.

According to Hosmer, the change to the voting procedure could cause a problem. He said he has been on council for 12 years and has not witnessed a bill put through this quickly in lieu of an emergency.

“Frankly, I think Mr. Cameron’s tenure is going to be marred by the fact that we put this in in a different way than normal protocol suggests – than we’ve historically always done,” he said. 

Executive Editor Christine Temple contributed.