New City Manager

[GRLaker]

Grand Rapids has a new city manager - the current assistant city manager of Austin, TX.

http://s.mlive.com/UCmGTsk

[jonrapley]

Pardon my complete ignorance on the subject, but in basic terms what does a city manager do? 

[wmrharris]

Formally, the job description is this: The City Manager is the Chief Executive that supervises all departments, offices, and agencies. One can think of the city Manager has covering three different vectors: internally, the task is to have the City government meet its respective goals, particularly the budgetary; second, the office overseas the interaction of the city government with the citizens of the City. Not only is the City one of the larger employers in the region, its various programs touch so many lives. Stated most positively, the Manager then helps the build the City's social capital; or looked at from another angle, the job is to make sure that citizens are harassing the elected about missing services. Third, the City Manager will be in active conversation with the many stakeholders in the City and region. these would include businesses, non-profits and other governments. 

Equity, accountability, transparency, integrity -- these are all leading qualities for a successful manager.

In his interview this afternoon, Mark Washington showed himself to be rather strong on the actual management of city business; he also demonstrated a fair amount of emotional intelligence (as one might expect from some one who came up from human resources). He looks like a solid choice. The internal candidate, Tom Alamonte brought many of these same soft resources coupled with a record of management within the City. The Commission went with the outside voice, but both were well equipped for the larger task of city governance.