City Manager Recruitment Process Moves Forward As Council Seeks to Select Consultant

However, in a city manager governance system, the most important spot may be who the next city manager will be.  That process is also moving forward.

The principal at Ralph Andersen responsible for the Davis City Manager search will be Heather Renschler.

Those costs would be capped at $25,000 but they would be budgeted through the general fund.

This is not going to be a quick process.  According to the report, “The recruitment of a permanent City Manager can be expected to take between four to six months.”

It continues, “Upon completion of the contract, Heather Renschler, President/CEO of Ralph Andersen, will work with the subcommittee to set a formal timeline and process for the search, and to begin preparation of the job announcement materials. Both of these initial tasks will come back to Council for review and approval.”

Currently Paul Navazio, who had been the finance director, is serving as the interim City Manager.

In 2006, the Council appointed Bill Emlen as interim City Manager, after they fired City Manager Jim Antonen.  Bill Emlen was eventually named as the permanent City Manager, and there does not appear to have been an active external search.

When Jim Antonen was hired, he was the product of a lengthy and extensive search.

There are competing thoughts as to the best approach.  The city could opt to stay in-house, and Paul Navazio is certainly as capable on paper as anyone.  There are some concerns about Mr. Navazio and whether he can really make the tough decisions.

He has a mixed record, at best, with regards to the city finances. He clearly has not been aggressive enough on reining in the MOUs, the employee compensation.  He has the tendency to tell people one thing in private and say something else in public.

On the other hand, Bill Emlen came from a planning background and was more hands-on with the planning aspects of the job.  Davis is really not going to be focusing on planning in the next five years – or at least should not be.  So hiring someone from the fiscal side of the aisle makes a good deal of sense.

As a critic of the city however, it has been my hope to bring in new energy and someone from the outside who can really change the way we do business here in Davis.

The city has done a very poor job of reaching out to the public proactively.  Often it seems that the city is caught off guard by the visceral response of the public to some decisions.

We have an antiquated communications system that needs a drastic overhaul.  Mr. Navazio has said this is one of his goals, so that may play a role in the long run.

It is our overall view that the city is run quite poorly, but gets away with it largely because of its affluence.  Now that revenue and property values are unlikely to climb, the city is going to have to make some tough decisions about how to continue to fund a very nice but expensive park system, how to provide key city services, and how to continue to provide first-rate public safety while at the same time finding the funding to repair the roads and develop the city economically.

This is a tough challenge for the next city manager and one of the key questions will be whether the next city manager should be someone from the outside who can shed new light on these problems, or someone from the inside who is perhaps more familiar with these challenges and can move more quickly.

The bottom line is that if this is a four- to six-month process, Paul Navazio is going to have to play a huge role in changing the culture of the city, because we cannot wait to see who pops up in June to start making changes.  That gives Mr. Navazio six months of auditioning, if he indeed wants the job, to show that he can be the one to make the changes.

We will be watching.

—David M. Greenwald reporting