Thursday, June 11, 2009
First, define the relationship
From the RoundTable blog
Read the latest entries
Ron Herring
Herring, of Roanoke, is the retired CEO of Lutheran Family Services of Virginia and is an adjunct faculty member at Radford University.
After the announcement of that Roanoke's city manager will be leaving, the chair of the council search committee observed that "now we need to establish the criteria for selection of a new city manager." Whoa, Nellie!
There is a lot of work to do before any thinking about criteria. Selection of a leader or manager is considered the single most important task of a governing body. Haste will make waste and there will not be an opportunity for a do-over.
Several critical steps need to occur, and the single most important one is for the council to address what its expectations are in this unique relationship of governance and operations we call the city manager model. It is a good model, but the council will need to spell out in very clear terms for itself and for applicants' consideration what it means by "we will be more active in decision-making and more aggressive in our participation" as the policy-making body for the citizens of Roanoke. To embrace and operationalize this goal is a good one, but to define what it means is quite another thing and needs to be done before seeking résumés.
Given the history of the relationship issues between council and city manager, if I were a candidate I would press this question of expectations in the relationship between city manager and city council as my first order of business. If it was unclear, I would withdraw from consideration immediately. If clear, I would put the expectations in writing and make them a part of annual performance reviews.
In addition, the five-year plan for the city needs a careful review by council since it likely contains much of the work and thinking of the current city manager. If council is going to be more aggressive, it should know what the priorities and issues are in the plan.
If members think they need to tweak or make changes for consideration by applicants, then they should do that now. An exception would be to forgo such a review but place the expectation on the new city manager to lead them in a comprehensive review of the plan at the end of the first year in office.
A welcome and good example is council's position to prioritize the City Market Building as next in line for capital improvement.
Another task that will assist council in its search is representative interviews with major stakeholders in the community such as the various sectors of city employees like fire, police, etc., and the business community, nonprofit community, education community, etc. While this is not to eliminate or minimize the contributions of the community at large, these stakeholders have unique perspectives that can assist the council in its decision-making.
Finally, the recent comment by one member of council after a daylong session that his "colleagues on the council are a weak group" resurrects the tradition of rancor among the members that the council has taken on as its identity. It sure is not helpful and suggests that one of the issues in the city manager/city council relationship may have something to do with council decorum and relationships and how to get members working together as a group.
Maybe we also need a set of expectations and criteria for the city council and some training on how to use them.
