Dependable Erection

Monday, April 28, 2008

City manager finalists announced

Welcome readers from Peoria and Wichita. I'm trying to gather as much information as possible regarding the applications of the former city managers of your towns to be Durham's new city manager. Comments are open, but you must have an ID somewhere. No anonymous comments. Civil is better than uncivil, but you'll find i'm not such a stickler for that.

I should also mention to Durham readers that the finalists will be at City Hall from 7 pm tonight for an informal meet the public and staff session.

Area media outlets are reporting that the names of the 3 finalists for the Durham city manager position have been made public (so far no general email blast from the city's public affairs department):
* George Kolb, a member of Wichita State University’s Hugo Wall School Advisory Board and guest lecturer teaching public administration. Kolb was also the city manager of Wichita, Kan., from 2004 to 2008.
* Charles “Randy” Oliver, a consultant to local governmental entities and private-sector clients. Oliver was also the city manager of Peoria, Ill., from 2003 to 2008 and city manager of Greenville, S.C., from 1999 to 2003.
* Patrick Salerno, the city manager of Sunrise, Fla., from 1990 to 2008. Salerno was also county manager of Cobb County, Ga., from 1987 to 1989 and county manager of Chatham County, Ga., from 1985 to 1987.


I'm real curious why both Kolb's and Oliver's recent tenures as managers of Wichita and Peoria respectively are given in the past tense. Off to drill through Google now and see if anything interesting reveals itself.

UPDATE 1: From the Wichita Eagle:
Kolb, who has been working as an interim lecturer at Wichita State University's Hugo Wall School of Urban and Public Affairs, resigned from his post as Wichita city manager Jan. 2 under pressure from city council members.

Kolb's severance package pays him for nine months' salary, valued at $182,700.

Emphasis added
Other media reports use the phrase "philosophical differences" to describe why Mr. Kolb resigned from his position in Wichita.

UPDATE 2: Much less info available about the departure of Charles "Randy" Oliver from his post as Peoria City Manager. Here's an interesting Peoria blog about the situation.

UPDATE 3: Here's some more from the Peoria blogosphere on Randy Oliver.

Update 4: More from the Wichita blogosphere on a specific incident during George Kolb's tenure that may (or may not) have relevance to Durham.

UPDATE 5: Hat tip to Matt Dees over at the N&O for revealing that the third candidate, Patrick Salerno, is also no longer employed at his most recent job as city manager.

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posted by Barry at 12:20 PM Digg this

16 Comments:

  • I know Randy Oliver pretty well. I found him to be pretty friendly and accommodating toward citizen journalists here in Peoria. As is always the case, he had his pluses and minuses as a city administrator. But he lasted a long time in a city where the city managers often are scapegoats for bad decision making by the elected politicians.

    By Blogger Billy Dennis, at 2:14 PM  

  • Billy - thanks for commenting.

    Any insight on what the issues between Randy and the Peoria Council were? To my understanding, the non-disclosure clause is pretty typical for ex-employees, but for us in Durham, making the right choice is a very big deal.

    I'd heard a rumor that two of the three candidates had left their managerial positions recently, which didn't fill me with confidence. As i say a lot, more info is better than less.

    By Blogger Barry, at 2:28 PM  

  • Patrick Salerno spent nearly 20 years in Sunrise, FL. If you're curious about how much Sunrise and Durham have in common, you can check out this history of the City of Sunrise. Sounds more like Cary than Durham, but that's a long tenure for one to be city manager; that should bode well for him. How many has Durham been through since 1990?

    By Blogger toastie, at 3:46 PM  

  • thanks t. i hadn't been spending as much time looking into his candidacy because he's still holding his position. The other two candidates, i get the sense there's something missing from the story as to why they are not currently working as city managers.

    By Blogger Barry, at 3:59 PM  

  • Why are all three candidates men?

    By Blogger Natalie, at 5:00 PM  

  • excellent question. i pointed that out to someone in the know who leaked me some details about the finalists, but did not get an answer i thought was satisfactory.

    if i haven't made it clear yet, my initial response to this slate of finalists is disappointing. Hopefully, these guys will be more impressive in person tonight at City Hall.

    By Blogger Barry, at 5:05 PM  

  • Durham residents would be well-advised to make sure they have the full story about Kolb's job before Wichita. I understand there were "philosophical differences" there as well.

    I heard lots of dissatisfaction with Kolb from Wichita city employees.

    By Blogger Unknown, at 7:34 PM  

  • Thank you, Stuart. I had the opportunity to ask Mr. Kolb about the Sunflower incident at the end of the forum tonight. I understand to a certain extent why some administrators find Alinsky-type groups difficult to work with, but in Durham, i think that Durham CAN is reasonably effective without having to rise to that level of confrontation. Neighborhood and community groups are the key in this town.

    By Blogger Barry, at 10:01 PM  

  • received this from a Peoria blogger who wishes to remain anonymous:

    I concur with Billy. Nice guy, very responsive, was one of the longer-running managers here in Peoria. Criticisms I heard from council members (during his tenure, but not during the time when he was working on his severance or afterwards) were that they had to fight him sometimes on budget priorities, and they felt he was too lenient on staff members who should have been disciplined or terminated, in their opinion. Take that for what it's worth. Other council members firmly defended him and felt he was the best manager we ever had. I will say that Randy is, for lack of a better term, loyal. In other words, he will not fight/disagree with the council in public, even though he may do so in private. When he talks to the press or whomever outside the city, he speaks the voice of the city. I consider that a good quality. Based on other city managers we've had, I can say with certainty that you guys could do a lot worse than Randy.

    By Blogger Barry, at 8:55 AM  

  • Sunrise, FL: A planned suburban community originally called "Sunrise Golf Village," home of the fourth-largest outlet mall in the US. Did someone else say Cary? Worse, even. At least there was a Cary before 1961.

    Cobb County, GA: Conservative suburb of Atlanta, 63% white, McMansionville. Capital = Marietta. Large industries include Lockheed Martin and Glock (yes, that Glock). Noted in more liberal circles for its later-rescinded 1996 anti-gay resolution.

    Yeah, that's soooooo much like Durham.

    I wonder how awful the other 40-something candidates must have been for this guy to come out in the top 3....

    By Blogger katuah, at 3:49 PM  

  • I lived in Cobb County when he was city manager. Granted, I was young, but I can say that it was a stunning period of disinvestment in the county seat Marietta. The church association was over there and it was a distribution point for Food not Bombs. It is different now, but Marietta was not immune to the urban disinvestment that many medium cities felt. At least in Marietta though they had better track record than Smyrba (2nd largest city) that condemned an entire neighborhood and commerical district to rebuild their downtown.

    By Blogger Natalie, at 4:19 PM  

  • Well, this has been a quick process for me. This morning I started reading the candidates names for the first time. I think I've got a clear favorite already.

    Salerno? Sunrise, Florida. Uh huh. And you can't give any other comments about Durham other than its size? Yeah. Here's some advice -- wait for the job opening in Wilmington. Trust us. You'll like it better there.

    Kolb sounds fine, except, what's this about the "Sunflower" incident? Kolb has a problem with IAF groups? Sorry, bud. You don't like working with vocal citizens groups, the last place you need to be is the Bull City.

    Oliver sounds good. Can we hear more about him?

    By Blogger Unknown, at 6:36 PM  

  • to be fair, Michael, i thought Salerno came across much better in person than on paper. He seemed very thoughtful and at times spare with his words, which may not translate well to the printed page. His comments on scenario planning v strategic planning were most interesting.

    i'm not sure that there's a city out there that could adequately prepare one for Durham. Maybe Oakland, or Brooklyn, which has a borough president, but not as far as i know an appointed administrator.

    For example, Peoria is 76% white, 17 percent black, 2.7% latino, and 2.5% asian. Perhaps even less diverse than Sunrise? It even lost population between the last census and the 2006 estimate. Quite different from Durham.

    If i get a chance tomorrow, i'll try to check out the south Florida blogosphere and get the skinny on Salerno. So far, i'm hearing more positive things from folks in Peoria about Oliver than folks in Wichita about Kolb.

    By Blogger Barry, at 6:53 PM  

  • by the way, Wichita? 98% white, 10% below poverty level.

    Other things to consider.

    Durham has both the highest median household income of the 4 cities under discussion, and the highest percentage of people living below the poverty line.

    By Blogger Barry, at 7:33 PM  

  • I haven't seen as much on Salerno as I did Kolb or Oliver. There's this from the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel:

    "Eighteen years is practically an eternity as a city manager, a job that has become like a professional sports coach. They’re hired to be fired, usually the first to go when something goes wrong and politicians look to save their own skin.

    This case was a variation. He was a manager who’d been around so long and had become so powerful and secretive that he lost sight that he worked for the commission and the public, not the other way around.

    It’s a little bit like what happened to Larry Deetjen, the former longtime city manager in Deerfield Beach.

    There’s no doubt Salerno and Deetjen were good at their jobs.

    But at some point they forgot they merely steer a bus with a lot of backseat drivers (commissioners), they don’t own the bus.

    Salerno’s propensity for stealth rankled some, but he had the support of a majority of commissioners until last year.

    Wishner came in touting openness. A culture clash was inevitable."

    http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/columnists/mayo/blog/2008/01/sunset_in_sunrise.html

    Not much more than I've been able to find elsewhere, and nothing all that different than what we've already heard....

    By Blogger Unknown, at 10:25 PM  

  • My comment above noting that Wichita is 98% white is incorrect. I was looking at data for Wichita County. The city of Wichita is in Sedgewick County. I have posted more accurate info on the front page. Apologies for the error.

    By Blogger Barry, at 9:54 AM  

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