One can never predict the future, of course, but the choice of a new city manager is probably the most important decision the current Lakewood City Council is going to make. So you, informed citizen, are going to want to know about it. I’ll tell you what little I know, and then please stay tuned as there are developments over many months.
A quick review of why a city manager is important. A city manager takes direction from a City Council and feedback from other people and turns that into a working city government. A city manager proposes detailed budgets and is, like the name says, the person who manages the people.
In some cities, the elected mayor is the top administrator. This is called the “strong mayor” system, and it’s a risky path. Nobody elects mayors because they are good managers. Strong mayors are elected not for management skills, but because they can please the majority of voters (or because people just don’t like the other candidates). The ability to please voters is different from the skills someone needs to manage the job performance of both individual human beings and intersecting groups of human beings. A strong mayor can be elected without ever having seen a budget before in their life.
There are certain strong mayors who possess management skills, though it’s only luck that elects those people.
In the common city manager system, it’s the City Council that provides direction; it’s the city manager who turns that direction into reality. For every direction, there’s a million small details. City manager is an incredibly important role. It’s also stressful and sometimes controversial. City Councils and priorities can change. So it’s a little remarkable that our city has had only three city managers in our nearly three decades of existence, Scott Rohlfs, Andrew Neiditz, and John Caulfield. I was on the council that selected Neiditz. Throughout the process, our council knew that the stakes were high. A city manager sets a lot of direction, and a bad city manager can do a lot of damage.
As it is, we’ve had three great city managers. Yeah, like me and you, they’ve had their weak points as well as strong ones. But that’s true of every boss I ever had, and maybe it’s true for you as well.
John Caulfield, who just announced his pending retirement, brought a lot of good thought to this city. When I first met John, he told me that he had read the history book that Steve Dunkelberger and I had written about Lakewood. So I immediately knew John to be a man of wisdom and discernment (why are you smiling?) and an appreciation of Lakewood’s heritage and history. John has been an advocate for the city’s history. Not everyone is.
I feel for our council as they take on the huge responsibility of bringing on Lakewood’s fourth city manager. There is an art and science in recruiting top executives to a community, and bless our City Council but they don’t have any expertise in such things. The council this week voted to hire a recruitment consultant to help them find a city manager. Every city hires these consultants to advertise and network and screen.
Lakewood narrowed its choice for firms to work with to two, named Karras and GMP. Karras is larger and more expensive, and they’ve worked with some pretty darn large organizations. They don’t just recruit for city managers, they also recruit for executive roles such as CEOs. So for example, they’ve done work with some massive employers, recruiting for the CEO of Sound Transit and executives in Pierce County.
Yeah, you heard right. CEO of Sound Transit. You know where I’m going to go with this.
So when you read that a company works a lot with State of Washington agencies, the City of Seattle, Sound Transit and Pierce County government, you know that their expertise is in dealing with posturing and bulls**t. And that’s a skill set, for sure
I’m sure they’d do great for Lakewood, but we would be nowhere near a big customer for them. The council appears to feel that GMP is going to do a personalized job trying to explain to candidates what Lakewood is, and its advantages, as well as the challenges. Every candidate needs to know such things.
And Lakewood is not a city of posturing and bulls**t. I love that you can speak candidly to city leaders here, and you don’t immediately get back a bunch of cliches and deceptions. Or if you do, people still look a little sheepish about it. I know Lakewood has some issues, especially recently, but we have a long way to slide to become Pierce County or state government.
I like that GMP has performed a lot of successful searches for smaller entities: Moses Lake, Lacey and Tumwater, for example. You could argue that maybe Lakewood should think more like a small town, instead of trying to become the next suburban Seattle city without soul. Small towns can be interesting and fun. I’d much rather we look for a talented person involved in a small or middle-sized city than someone who got rejected as CEO of Sound Transit.
The importance of public involvement
The one thing that gives me pause is a promise in the Karras literature that they offer this service:
Finalist Interview The role of the City of Lakewood City Manager is wide ranging and a change in top leadership will have a significant impact on the Council, staff, and partners. Finalist interviews and forums will provide Council Members, staff and partners an opportunity to ask questions of finalists and weigh in on the search for their new leader.
I don’t see that in the writeup about GMP, the chosen company. But maybe it didn’t need to be said. It’s really important that the City Council introduce potential managers to people like you and me, as well as the city staff and the city’s close partner organizations. The council that I served on asked people what they thought of city manager candidates. It’s important our City Council do the same.
I’m sure the city will organize opportunities for people to meet the candidates. You don’t need an outside consultant to do that.
So for now, friends, we sit back and some people like the City Council and this recruitment firm are going to be doing some heavy lifting. I wish them well. I can’t wait to meet the candidates.
Over the past 20+ years, I perceive the City government has become more “big city-like” and less open and inviting to citizens. Perhaps it was inevitable, but nonetheless sad.
Alan….absolutomundo!
Walter….A BIG mercy buckets for your insight(s). Wish you were on the City Council still.
EKC
Thank you, Walter, for sharing your insights–an important link for citizens to their city government and Lakewood’s soul.
The past few years, Lakewood has not been able to hold its citizens as its core focus and priority, because of “larger government” mandates being imposed on us.
This sort of “big brother” manipulation has made it impossible to maintain a small town feel and quality.
Many in those “higher” positions of authority, see Lakewood simply as a place to be densified along a mass transit corridor.
Some of that kind of seems inevitable over time I guess, but with that comes a completely different mindset – a mindset which values convenience over freedom and independence.
We see that shift in the way thought (speech) is regarded more as a weapon than an expression these days, as people are so easily offended. And since speech is now a weapon: Oh my God, an actual traditional weapon (pick one) is regarded as a tool of hate or oppression – something that has to be heavily restricted or better yet, done away with completely – escalation of fear, which is then weilded politically as a weapon of mass change – Devious.
Nothing has changed in regards to the object, except the mindset of those who chose to live a life of convenience.
What does this have to do with city leadership/management? A lot.
We have a shooting range on the border of Lakewood and U.P. which has been there for over a hundred years. At about any given time during open hours, there are people there, shooting all sorts of firearms, air rifles, and archery. It is a fellowship of many who enjoy accuracy and skill of the “projectile sports”. It’s a wonderful club which has withstood attempts by developers to bulldoze it and convert it to housing. And then what? Sit in that house or apartment and doom-scroll the internet?
Maybe play a shoot-em-up game, killing digital people – wholesale?
As I write this, State Government is in the process of passing a plethora of restrictive laws, which will be imposed on all law-abiding firearm owners in Washington State. I say law-abiding because the small minority of criminals don’t give a damn about your laws. In fact, they will eagerly use them against the rest of us.
Wise leadership would see this clearly, and they would side with the majority of people who conduct themselves in a sane and reasonable manner.
Wise leadership would not hold their constituents responsible for failing to prevent the acts of criminals.
Wise leadership would not criminalize its constituents for opposing ill-advised laws which are clearly unconstitutional, at both the state and federal level.
Fear any politically ambitious leader who ,fears your freedom.
Oh, and John Caulfield’s shoes will be hard to fill.
Sometimes it is just one man who stands between good and stupid.
Best of luck in whatever you choose to pursue.
All I say is make sure the City Manager is NOT woke. Common sense is what we need in that person. Make sure he/she is not political affiliated with any party. Independent would be nice but will be very hard to find in these troubling times.
Thanks for your insights to our city government,Walter! I know I certainly appreciate your input!
“The most important decision this Lakewood City Council is going to make” is whether they are going to assert themselves as “directors” of the city manager, as representatives of the people who elected them, or become led by the city manager for the benefit of the employee staff.
This is not just a local issue but rather a national issue where un-elected bureaucrats run the country according to their prerogatives, under the nose of a dysfunctional elected Congress. All too often in the past the city manager has come up with a “school solution” to City problems with the only Council option a “yes” or “no” vote. From a systems perspective, this essentially constrains Council in their decision making process.
We the people are the Council’s “boss” and the city manager their only employee. It is far too easy for temporary elected officials to defer to the expertise and institutional knowledge of permanent staff instead of those who elected them. Council members may not have that “expertise” but what they should have is the pulse of Lakewood’s citizens.