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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2008-04-25 TranscriptionApril 25, 2008 Meet and Greet With City Manager Candidates Page 1 Apri125, 2008 Special City Council Meet and Greet 7:30 A.M. Council Present: Bailey, Champion, Correia, Hayek, O'Donnell, Wilburn, Wright Staff: Dilkes, Karr Others Present: Michael Lombardo, A. J. Johnson, Paul Beecher Meet and Greet -City Manager Candidates: Bailey: Good morning. I want to thank all of you for being here, and to announce that the coffee has arrived, so please don't, uh, you know, push or shove. It's right over here, ready to go. Um, I'm Regenia Bailey, Mayor of the City of Iowa City. On behalf of the Council, we welcome you here this morning and thank you for being here with us as we meet our City Manager candidates. How we're going to do this is, um, the candidates will take about two, three minutes, introduce themselves, talk a little bit about their interest in Iowa City, and then instead of formal questions, we'll allow you to mingle with them afterwards, and as you talk with them about your individual questions, we thought people could get a lot more information that way instead of a set of questions, and just keep in mind that there are lots of people who have their own questions, so just be cognizant of how much time, um, you're taking with the candidates, but certainly we invite you to stick around and talk to them individually. So, with that, I will start with Michael Lombardo and allow him to just introduce himself and talk about Iowa City. Lombardo: Well, good morning, um, I'm Michael Lombardo. Bailey: Michael, I think I'll ask you to step to the mic, because Marian is taping (mumbled) Lombardo: Good morning, um, Michael Lombardo, um, I'm currently living in Hamilton, Michigan. I'm the former County Administrator, uh, for Allegheny County, Michigan. Um, I started my...my focus on local government, uh, completing an MPA at the University of Albany, uh, my undergraduate degree is in Economics, uh, so a strong research background. Um, prior to starting my career in local government, I worked for T-Bank for seven years, um, in commercial banking and at the branch level, progressed through to become Branch Supervisor there, and then returned to graduate school to complete my degree and start a career in local government. Um, following a series of very good, um, internships with the State of New York and also Schenectady County, New York, um, I proceeded on to work for the International City-County Management Association. They're the professional association for local government managers. Um, I oversaw their performance measurement work and took This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Special Meet and Greet of City Manager Candidates of Apri125, 2008. April 25, 2008 Meet and Greet With City Manager Candidates Page 2 a consortium project of 40 large cities and counties and, uh, established the Center for Performance Measurement, which, um, really assists local governments in evaluating their service delivery, uh, looking at outcomes - are we achieving what we want to achieve, and being able to measure that and articulate it, uh, to the citizenry. Um, from there I became the Assistant City Manager and Chief Financial Officer for Augusta, Maine. Uh, capitol city of Maine. I worked on a broad array of programs there, uh, Economic Development, Downtown Revitalization, uh, and all aspects of the fiscal systems and budget process there, development of the CIP and the like. Um, in late 2002 I became the Allegheny County Administrator, uh, lead them through, uh, a series of difficult years. Uh, Michigan budgets are...are, uh, diminishing quite rapidly, and it was a very interesting time to look at, um, and examine how do we, you know, still be effective in our services and in meeting the public's needs in a downward spiral economically and...and, uh, crafting budgets to really meet those needs. Um, with that, uh, I'd be happy to answer your questions. I look forward to meeting many of you, all of you if possible, uh, and thank you for this time. (applause) Johnson: Good morning. I'm A. J. Johnson. I'm currently serving as the City Administrator of Muscatine, Iowa. Um, my background has all been in local government through my career. I'm a native of the Des Moines area, following my public education through there. I attended Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa, where I received a B.A. in Political Science. Following that I did, um, while at Wartburg I also had an opportunity to intern with the City Administrator's office there, and my real first taste of getting involved in local government was to help craft their cable television ordinance, back in the late 70's. So, uh, that was kind of one of those things where they say interns don't get to do much, but we also had, uh, an opportunity to put that together. Uh, following that I received my Master's degree from Drake University, and while in the Des Moines' area, I had the opportunity to intern at a number of State agencies, and after doing that I realized I didn't want to do State government. Um, I realized that I wanted to do local government, and I had an 8-month internship with the City Manager's office in Des Moines at the time, and uh, that was a wonderful experience and that really helped to solidify my, uh, professional career aspirations to get into city government. While there, uh, they had the opportunity to work on a lot of their downtown projects that have now become reality. The skywalk system and some of the other improvements associated...ifyowre familiar with the Civic Center and the Nolan Plaza area, they were working on those. So, those were exciting times to be involved in local government, particularly in the Des Moines' area and that really helped kind of get the juices flowing, if you will, to keep me interested in that profession. From there I proceeded out to Ohio...Sydney, Ohio, just north of Dayton, Ohio area, a town of about 18,000, 19,000. I was the Assistant to the City Manager there for This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Special Meet and Greet of City Manager Candidates of Apri125, 2008. April 25, 2008 Meet and Greet With City Manager Candidates Page 3 four years. Had a wonderful experience there, uh, as in the Assistant role I got to do everything that the City Manager didn't want to do, and so that was, uh, that kind of gives you, uh, some really interesting responsibilities, but the primary responsibilities were in personnel and purchasing, and uh, and public relations. So that was quite an experience. Again, a wonderful place to live and to become broken into the profession. And then I ventured out, uh, wanted to get to that City Manager position, and ventured over to Montevideo, Minnesota, which is about 130 miles directly west of the Twin Cities, and uh, 30 miles from the South Dakota border, and about 150 miles from nowhere. It was really out in, uh, lots of winter, lots of wind, uh, but again, another wonderful community. A strong City Manager position, um, about 6,000 people, was there for about three and a half years, uh, had a wonderful experience there, uh, did a lot of activity there associated with some downtown redevelopment. Uh, that community was more of a hub for the area, uh, given western Minnesota's demographics, uh, even a town of 6,000 had a significant draw for medical, for retail, uh, for education, so we had a much more larger base to work with, but we looked at, uh, the vitality of the community, uh, really worked hard on economic diversity to try to take it out of a farm service area into a light manufacturing area, and that was critical, that was the goal of the community. We worked very hard on that, uh, and then in 1989 the opportunity in Muscatine came up and, uh, my wife and I are both from Iowa and we thought the opportunity to come back to Iowa, be part of that was too good to pass up. So, I, uh, came as the City Administrator in 1989, have been there since that time. I've enjoyed 18 wonderful years over in Muscatine. We've done an awful lot of work associated with, uh, redevelopment activity on our riverfront in the last ten years. Uh, we've probably, as a community, have spent in the last 15 years spent close to $20 million on riverfront redevelopment, not only from the City but othex private sector investment as well, so we've been very proud of that. Uh, also, uh, really building a strong coalition between business and government, as far as the projects and programs we want to undertake in our community. So we've been very successful with that. If you're familiar with Muscatine, it, uh, it is probably by per capita one of the strongest manufacturing communities in the state of Iowa, but with that comes some challenges, as well. We've dealt with, uh, economic development issues associated with, uh, our growth, with housing related issues, with replacement of aging infrastructure. So those are things that we've tackled in the last 18 years, fairly successfully I think, and uh, we've, uh, we've been proud of those accomplishments. As Michael, I look forward to meeting all of you this morning, and be happy to answer your questions. Thank you. (applause) Beecher: Good morning. My name is Paul Beecher, and I'd like to thank you all for braving the weather to come out this morning. I understand this is about your third time of doing this, so you're probably better at it than I am. I This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Special Meet and Greet of City Manager Candidates of Apri125, 2008. Apri125, 2008 Meet and Greet With City Manager Candidates Page 4 started out in this business actually by mistake. Uh, my mother wanted me to be a priest and I really didn't have that type of calling. One day when I was working in Dallas, I walked across the street to the campus of Southern Methodist University with the intention of enrolling in their Law School. The, uh, the Dean of the Law School advised me that they were starting a joint Masters of Public Administration Jurist Doctorate program at the time, and would I be interested in being one of the first students in that program, and I said, `Sure, why not!' Like all the other candidates here, we had to do an internship during the program and I had the good fortune of becoming an intern of the City of Richardson, Texas, and I realized that this is what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. This gave me an opportunity to help people in a secular way, as opposed to a religious way, but it also gave me the opportunity to help communities become what they wanted to be by bringing people together. I've had 33 years of experience in a variety of communities, different sizes all across this country, done...gotten into more trouble than I wanted to, and done a lot of good things, I hope, over those years in all the communities I've been working for. I see a real opportunity in Iowa City, hopefully as your next City Manager. You have a beautiful community with a lot of resources. The Council did a very good, thorough interview yesterday and, you know, they even opened my eyes to some other opportunities that exist here. With your relationship with the University, uh, the dynamic relationship that exists there, your relationship with the County and the other local governments in the area give you, give this whole area -not just Iowa City, but the whole area - an opportunity to be a real star in the state of Iowa, and a real star in the...in this part of the country. Just in the short time I had to talk to some of you before we came up here, and I was impressed with the diversity of interests out there. The diversity of opinions in this community, and I think that's a very, very healthy thing. Uh, you know, sometimes as a manager you...if you've done it a real long time or even if you haven't done it for a real long time, you get...you get so overwhelmed by the requests and the problems that you...you just kind, `Oh, my gosh! What am I doing?' but believe me, I would much rather work with a community that's interested in its future, that has its best interests at heart, and wants to be part of that. You know, I've worked too many places where there's just...where they don't get involved unless it comes into their backyard, which is pretty typical of most of us, you know? If it's going to be in our backyard, we don't want it unless we agree with what it's going to be. So, I...I see opportunities to bring people together here, to move forward, to agree on a direction that we want to move in, and to realize that we sometimes have to set aside our differences in order to accomplish that; quit being selfish, quit being petty, and realize that we are a community, made up of individuals, but a community nonetheless that must go forward, and I see that opportunity here. You've had a great run. You've had a good staff. Your prior City Manager has done an excellent job. You're in good financial shape, but there's still that This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Special Meet and Greet of City Manager Candidates of Apri125, 2008. April 25, 2008 Meet and Greet With City Manager Candidates Page 5 one more step to go, and I certainly hope that I have the opportunity to take you there. Thank you for coming again, and I' 11 look forward to talking with all of you. (applause) Bailey: So now I would invite you all to mingle, meet the candidates, um, have some...we have plenty of food. We have coffee now, so please...thank you all again for coming, and um, there are comment forms out on the table, and then there are comment forms on the web. So, we invite your feedback on our candidates, and thank you. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Special Meet and Greet of City Manager Candidates of Apri125, 2008.