by California City News staff
Well it would appear that all of the chatter about succession planning during the last decade is finally upon us. It’s true, city managers don’t work forever and they do ultimately retire. It started to dawn on us as the retirement announcements for such city management icons as Kathy Millison (Santa Rosa), Rod Gould (Santa Monica) and Jim Armstrong (Santa Barbara) came across the CityNews desk.
Moreover, we’ve seen a significant increase in the number of city manager spots opening up on our jobs board in the last quarter. Executive search firms have posted more city manager openings since January of this year than in all of 2013 and we haven’t even reached the fourth quarter. This is a significant sign that retirements and changes are happening and will likely increase in the coming months. As we all know, there’s a certain shuffling that takes place when a city manager leaves for another city. Others step up to fill the void while new assistant city managers get the call to begin the next phase of their careers. In fact, while we track the comings and goings of city staff for you here at California City News, you can almost get a good picture of the employment musical chairs just by watching the jobs ad postings – for every city manager ad, there’s a commensurate opening in three or more department head spots as shuffling occurs.
The retirement wave doesn’t just mean life changing decisions for the retiring city manager however. Now is increasingly the time when assistant city managers are going to have to make some significant career and life decisions of their own. Is it better to move the family across the state for that opening that wasn’t expected, or should we wait to see what happens closer to our current home? Should I apply for that city opening when it’s not what I considered ideal and the chances of more openings coming shortly appears more likely? It’s especially difficult with young kids in school or a spouse who has a career outside of local government.
We got to know Kathy, Rod and Jim as both great city managers but as even better human beings. Each of these great leaders gave much to the profession over the years in their leadership capacities in both the cities they worked in but also with their respective city manager organizations as well as with the League of California Cities. I had the chance to talk with Kathy shortly after her announcement and she reminded me that just because she was retiring didn’t mean she was going away.
While we talked a lot about her career in city management we spent considerably more time talking about what was coming next in life. We have no doubt that each of these managers, and many other retirees, will continue to lead, mentor and offer the best of their experience and leadership to a new generation of city managers and the communities they live in.
Perhaps some of the best advice they can provide young managers is the personal kind. The life decisions that need to be considered that you don’t learn while studying public administration.