City manager is a tough job, and as several Denver suburbs vet potential new leaders, candidates are having to prove they can do more than just make sure the lights and water stay on.
“The job has certainly gotten more demanding,” said Mark Deven, recently hired to manage the city of Arvada. “Now, perhaps more than any other time in the history of local government, we’re being challenged to be more innovative. Resources are being constrained, but service demand is increasing. We need to become more and more creative in how we deliver local government services.”
Five finalists will begin interviewing today to replace Jim Woods, who retires next month after 27 years of service to the city of Littleton. Centennial will soon launch a search to replace Jacque Wedding-Scott, who resigned Friday. In about a month, Deven will move from Woodland, Calif., to begin work in Arvada. And George Noe, responsible for overseeing the $550 million budget of the area’s second-largest city, has been in Aurora for less than a year.
Whether the issue is something as seemingly simple as ensuring that local residents are happy with their garbage pickup or trying to get a seat at the table of the regional coalition that Denver Mayor Michael Hancock is trying to develop, the work isn’t as easy as it has been in the past.
Although he said he’ll wait until he meets with Arvada’s council before he develops plans to solve the issues facing the city, Deven does have some ideas about his approach.
“There’s performance-based budgeting, where we really try to define the service levels in defining how effective and efficient we are, . . . and then making sure we’re maximizing all opportunities for collaboration,” he said. “I think the city’s been forward-thinking along those lines anyway, but that’s something that we’ve been pushing in California.”
Deven said he’s excited by the things his new city has to offer — its parks-and-recreation system and the Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities, among them — and is thrilled to become a part of it all.
But he’s also sobered, as are other city managers, by the potential pitfalls of leading a municipality during tough economic times.
“Citizens are concerned that their governments are as efficient and effective as possible — and they’re sensitive to the economic consequences of that — and a lot of that focuses on the city manager,” he said. “I think these days, in addition to being a smart and resourceful manager, you also have to have a certain degree of political and policy savvy in order to be successful.
“Sometimes, those things can be at cross-purposes with each other,” he said, “but you still have to be able to think from both perspectives.”
Anthony Cotton: 303-954-1292 or acotton@denverpost.com
