Three vie for city manager

The Spokane Valley City Council is expected to choose a new city manager at its regular council meeting Tuesday. The three announced finalists out of 26 original candidates are current acting city manager Mike Jackson, Michael Wilson of Gig Harbor, Wash., and Paul Schmidt of Cheney.

The position opened earlier this year when the council, with four new members, asked for the resignation of thencity manager Dave Mercier. The council has not yet publicly discussed when a new city manager would start work or what the annual salary will be.

Paul Schmidt

Current job: City administrator for Oak Harbor, Wash., a city of about 20,000 residents on Whidbey Island in the Puget Sound.

Education: Master’s degree of public administration from Eastern Washington University, bachelor’s in sociology and political science from North Dakota State University.

Schmidt, 56, maintains a residence in Cheney and commutes to his Oak Harbor job, which he has held since 2006. He previously worked as the city administrator in Cheney for seven years and was Cheney’s director of public works for 13 years before that.

He first learned the position was open in January, when Mercier sent an e-mail to other city managers in the state announcing that he’d been let go, Schmidt said. He also spotted an ad for the position in The Spokesman-Review. “I keep tabs on what is happening in Spokane,” he said.

Schmidt said he was eager to take advantage of such an opportunity close to home that “fits into my career track very nicely right now. I thought I should throw my hat into the ring.”

Schmidt is not accredited as a city manager through the International City/County Management Association (ICMA), but would consider it if he gets the job. “I keep abreast of the issues,” he said. “I don’t see that as any impediment at all.”

He said he’s familiar with the issues facing the city. “The Sprague/Appleway Revitalization Plan has been sort of a handful for them,” he said. He knows about the uproar over the snowplowing contract, the “lingering disincorporation discussion” and the ongoing debate over the cost of the public safety contract. “Those things are still there and still challenges,” he said. “It isn’t anything that can’t be fixed or worked on.”

His first order of business would be to examine the 2011 budget, Schmidt said. “Like all cities, all the revenue streams are under siege, if you will,” he said. “Spokane Valley isn’t insulated from that.”

He also plans to gain a basic feel for where the City Council wants to go. He doesn’t anticipate making any staffing changes right out of the gate if he’s hired. “By all appearances they have a very good staff assembled,” he said. “You don’t go in and start with wholesale changes until you get the lay of the land.”

Schmidt said he has no problem applying for a position where the previous city manager was abruptly shown the door. “It’s not uncommon in this line of work,” he said, noting that Mercier was with the city for seven years and most city managers only last between five and seven years. “It just happens. It’s not a cause for pause.”

Michael Wilson

Current job: Owner of a consulting company, Municipal Management Services, in Gig Harbor, Wash.

Education: Law degree from the Western State University College of Law in San Diego, a certificate in basic government risk management from the University of Arizona and a bachelor’s degree in political science from Washington State University.

Wilson, 60, has worked as a city and county administrator since 1985. In recent years he has done mostly interim or short-term contract work, including his most recent position as a grant administrator for the city of Auburn, Wash., for seven months in 2009, and as finance director for the city of Renton, Wash., for seven months in 2005. He also worked as interim city administrator for the city of Milton, Wash., for nearly a year before resigning in March 2009 over issues relating to his authority to hire and fire city staff, he said. “I just felt I couldn’t do any more for the city,” he said.

Wilson said he began the interim work because he wanted a break from city management, but now he’s ready for a more long-term commitment. “I am at a point where I am recharged,” he said. “I really am looking for a solid tenure with Spokane Valley. There are not very many opportunities like this that open up.”

He heard about the open position through the media and had previously expressed interest in becoming the city’s interim manager. He’s familiar with Spokane Valley and said that when he was the city manager for the newly incorporated city of Sammamish, Wash., (then a city of 35,000) representatives from the Spokane Valley incorporation group visited with him about setting up a new city.

“This appeared to be a pretty good fit and opportunity for me,” he said. “I’ve always taken on some pretty difficult challenges.”

While Wilson’s résumé and cover letter say he is a credentialed city manager through ICMA, Wilson said he let his membership lapse several years ago. “It’s kind of like being a member of the bar (association), you have to go through continuing education,” he said. “I simply have not renewed it. I’ve chosen not to go to a lot of those meetings. I just feel my time is better spent staying at home and working with the city.”

He would have no problem relocating to Spokane Valley to take the job, he said. “I’m still an Eastern Washington kid,” he said. “I’m not used to the rain.”

The challenges Wilson sees for Spokane Valley are the city’s ability to deliver core essential services, the numerous contracts with Spokane County and land-use issues related to the Sprague/Appleway Revitalization Plan. “I know that has been very challenging for the council,” he said. “A lot of the issues the city of Spokane Valley is facing are right down my alley.”

If he is hired Wilson said he plans to be as open as possible with the public. “I hate the overused word ‘transparency,’ ” he said. “I think number one is getting to establish a trusting relationship between me, the staff, the mayor and council and the community.”

He also wants to take a look at the city’s financial policies. He said he doesn’t plan to make any staffing changes. “I’m not a micromanager,” he said. “I work very closely with the council. Obviously there are times when the council may have a connection with a staff member or not. If they don’t have a good relationship with the council, there may be some performance issues.”

Wilson said he would take council member opinions into consideration when dealing with staff issues.

He has no problem working for a council that asked its previous city manager to resign, he said. “There are going to be issues that are going to come up,” he said. Having a new council want a new city manager is to be expected, he said.

Mike Jackson

Current job: Spokane Valley acting city manager

Education: Master’s degree in management from Regis University in Colorado, bachelor’s degree in recreation resource management from Utah State University and peace officer certification through the Utah Police Academy in Salt Lake City.

Jackson, 56, was the parks, library and recreation director in Sterling, Colo., (with a population of about 12,500) for 14 years before arriving in Spokane Valley to take the job of parks and recreation director when the city incorporated in 2003. He was attracted to the job of starting a new department because he’d brought together parks, forestry, libraries and recreation into one department in Sterling. “The concept of starting another new department was really attractive to me,” he said.

He was named deputy city manager in 2007, which he said wasn’t part of his original plan. At the time, he was still taking classes for his master’s degree. “I was starting to set my sights a little higher,” he said.

Jackson was named acting city manager in February after Mercier was asked to resign. The council interviewed him before giving him the interim position, he said. “I think it was a fairly natural progression, but they did want to interview me,” he said.

It was only natural for a new council to want a new city manager and Mercier’s departure didn’t deter him from seeking the job. “I didn’t have any reservations,” he said. “I think anyone that works in city management understands that it’s an at-will position. I’ve been very comfortable with the new council. I feel that we’ve communicated very well.”

He is a credentialed city manager candidate with ICMA and will become fully credentialed in November when he has completed the required three years of experience as a city manager.

Jackson points to several new initiatives he’s begun since being named acting city manager. He started a new program where he and all the department heads invite citizens to bring a sack lunch and talk about various issues. He said he wants people to feel free to come down to City Hall with their concerns. “I’d like it to become a lot more accessible,” he said.

He’s also implemented a new customer suggestion/complaint tracking program that will go live when the city’s new website is launched in the fall. Anyone who requests information or assistance will be given a tracking number that they can use to track the progress of their request and read city staff comments on work being done on the issue. “We’re going to track all those to make sure we have 100 percent response back to the citizen,” he said.

His long-term goals include finding a funding source for the city’s parks and street capital funds and a street maintenance program. “My term as acting city manager since January has been one of the most enjoyable, challenging and rewarding times of my career,” he said. “I’ve enjoyed it immensely.”

Jackson’s current contract allows him to return to his position as deputy city manager if someone else is given the permanent city manager job. Jackson said he would likely take that option if one of the other candidates is hired, at least in the short term: “It’s always hard to speculate on what one would do until it happens.”