Point Austin: How Will We Manage?

"We'll need to find an extraordinary, extraordinary administrator, a really terrific manager." That was Mayor Will Wynn on the recruitment of a new city manager, which began in earnest last week when the City Council went public with its hiring of the personnel firm Arcus Public to deliver a group of local and national candidates to the council for a decision in the next couple of months. Although the transition began bumpily – when incumbent Toby Futrell first announced her pending retirement and then declined to name a date – it now looks likely that we'll have a brace of candidates sometime in November and a decision before the end of the year. Reportedly, Futrell is now working amicably with the council on the search process and will likely remain in a consulting capacity through her retirement vesting date, next May – with the intent that staff will get the benefit of the overlap.

We shall see.

Along with the mayor, I spoke to several council members over the past week about their approach to the search, their early sense of the candidates, and any other thoughts they might have on the prospective hiring process. (I managed to reach everybody but Betty Dunkerley and Jennifer Kim.) Wynn said he fully expects to have a difficult decision, "because the national cachet that Austin has right now will mean a very attractive panel of candidates. People in the public sector know what kind of extraordinary opportunity this is." Wynn wears his Austin enthusiasm on his sleeve, but he also pointed out that Austin's explosive growth represents both a challenge and an opportunity to a prospective city manager. "It appears the city will once again double in size in 20 years, and that represents a dynamism unlike many other cities, even large cities that have mostly stopped growing. Anyone we hire will have to be a truly great manager, to respond to that growth."

---

Looking for Collaboration

It's no secret that in the last year there has been plenty of tension between the city manager's office and the council, occasionally exploding into personal conflict, most audibly between Futrell and Mike Martinez. Some of this is structural, since policy-makers and -executors are always going to be somewhat at odds, but in recent years (thanks to term limits), the balance of power had shifted perceptibly in favor of unelected staff, which has the benefits of both initial experience and then endurance on short-termed elected officials. (The pendulum may begin to swing back with last year's charter change to a three-term limit.)

Martinez is the frankest in declaring that the new city manager must "understand and accept the authority of council to make policy" and should "manage things administratively and not so publicly and politically" as he believes has Futrell. Other members were less critical, but several also emphasized the policy-making role of council. Lee Leffingwell said we need a "chief administrator" who doesn't necessarily "seek the limelight." As Brewster McCracken put it diplomatically, "We need somebody who is collaborative without being a pushover."

I thought somebody might reveal a preference for "inside" or "outside" candidates, but at this point, all are insisting they'll look at everybody before they start making choices. At least four current city staff members – assistant city managers Laura Huffman and Rudy Garza, Austin Energy general manager Juan Garza, and Chief of Staff Kristen Vassallo – are being prominently mentioned, and the members describe them as "all fine candidates" who deserve serious consideration. "It's hard to predict in the abstract" who might be a leading candidate before the actual list is compiled, said McCracken. "It depends so much on who shows up."

More than likely the finalists will be experienced officials with extensive experience in public administration. Martinez said he asked Arcus also to seek proactively potential private-sector candidates – "a CEO or some experienced business manager" – who might not otherwise show up on such a search, and the others said they would certainly consider it. The most likely candidates are managers of smaller cities looking to step up or a high official from somewhere like Seattle or San Diego with a sudden urge to Go Texan.

---

Experience Rules

One odd detail already exemplifies the uneasiness, even suspicion, that persists between council and staff: When the Statesman listed "a master's degree" as one of the requirements for candidacy, the council members were puzzled how that came to be a standard, as none of them had discussed it with Arcus. Finally Wynn told me, "That just came from an old search template for the job, and of course we reserve the right to waive it if we choose to." An advanced degree might indeed be useful – noted Sheryl Cole, "Many of our current, excellent employees are LBJ School [of Public Affairs] graduates, so that may well be a consideration in hiring their supervisor" – but none of the members considers it a prerequisite. "I don't care about that," bluntly concluded McCracken.

All of this will shake out over the next several weeks, and the members are hoping that the official and public process parallels their popular hiring of new Austin Police Department Chief Art Acevedo. "I know not everybody agrees," said Wynn, "but I happen to believe that the city has been managed very well and is in sound, sound shape [under Futrell]. Now we need to do our due diligence, follow a careful thought process, and find the best candidate we possibly can."