What Would You Do If You Were City Manager In 2012?

If you were the city manager of Martinez, what would you want to accomplish for 2012?

Bear in mind that you are not the supreme dictator of Martinez; you have people to answer to, mostly the five elected folks who make up the Mayor and City Council. They are the ones who set the course, you are the one to steer the ship of state on that course.

Still, it’s a small town, and most of us want the same basic outcome: safe neighborhoods, great schools, plentiful jobs, thriving shops and businesses, a combination of active and passive recreation.

Oh, and of course, a functional marina.

The devil, as always, is in the details. And these days one of the most uncomfortable of those details is the economy, which continues to wheeze along like some asthmatic uncle who insists on coming with you on the trip, even though you really wish he’d just stay home. No one really knows if this economy is going to recover or continue to idle or plummet into the abyss. It makes holiday shopping a real challenge. Imagine what it does to a city manager, who must try and maintain service levels in the face of an ever-shrinking pile of cash, with at least some of those five elected folks gearing up for re-election.

As city manager, would you like to continue to maintain the parks, especially if you’ve just spent enormous sums of taxpayer approved bond money to revamp them? Of course you would, you say. Ok, then you’ve got to negotiate a new contract with your employees, many of whom maintain those parks. Do you offer them less money and/or cuts in benefits? They’re in no mood for that. So do you lay some of them off? There goes your service levels.

So, do you go to the mat with the employees, hoping that the current mood of the public to oppose public employee unions will carry the day? Not so fast, there, city manager. You may get some support from the general population to cut wages and/or benefits, but don’t count on political support from the council. Employee unions, for better or worse, have a lot of pull in local politics. Not to mention the fact that these are real people we're talking about. They live here, they're raising families here. They work hard for you and the city. They deserve a decent living. 

We're here going to leave out the non-union management positions - because in real life many of those positions have been severely cut. Try to find the Planning Department these days. 

You know what other group has a lot of political muscle? Police unions, speaking of safe neighborhoods. How do you negotiate with the cops? They are equally opposed to salary and/or benefit reductions. And public safety is always very popular politically. 

Ok, let’s say you choose to negotiate wages and benefits successfully. This hasn’t been done in real life yet – negotiations are still in the works. But this is our scenario, so let’s say your pile of cash has dwindled, but you can make it work. You’re the city manager.

Next you turn to your downtown, which is old and in constant need of repair. And it is populated by a county government that is on the verge of departing, at least in large part, for other places. Most of the downtown retail business lives and dies by those county functions, yet the county is definitely packing up to go. What are you going to do to bring customers back downtown?

One proviso: you can’t say “redevelopment,” because that option has been deftly taken off the table by the state.

How are you going to replace the daily occupation (pardon the expression) of our city by hundreds of county employees?

That was the question of this summer’s program, and it’s the question facing current City Manager Phil Vince.

“I’d like to create some infill housing,” he said. “We need more people who live downtown. People who are going to shop there, and spend time there.”

What would your approach to housing be? Do you think there is enough now, or do we need more? If we need more, where should it go? 

He also wants to attract light industry to Martinez, create a base of ‘green’ industry and manufacturing. Right now, the focus at all levels of government is job creation, and the most desired jobs are those in the sustainable energy field, and high tech.

Would this be your approach? If so, where would you locate these businesses? 

Vince said he’s in the process now of working with Main Street property owners and merchants to create a “new flow” on Main, to restructure the parking and create the possibility of outdoor dining all up and down the street. This was another idea that won a lot of support from Downtown Matters.

Would you take this approach? If not, how would you redesign Main Street to accommodate outdoor dining and make it more pedestrian friendly?

He also wants to purchase three or four downtown vacant lots and turn them into parking lots, to help alleviate the merchants’ need for long-term parking. This, he said, is a far less expensive alternative to the oft-discussed downtown parking garage.

What would you do about downtown parking? 

I threw in the marina just to be a brat. This is a perpetual pain in the patoot for city officials, who have frankly allowed this lovely amenity to turn into a silt-laden disaster over the years. Without state financial support, which was recently taken away by the Department of Boating and Waterways, it appears that the marina may have to sink or swim on its own.

Do you let it go, return it to the state, or try to make it work with resources you don’t really have?

What would you do if you were the Martinez City Manager in 2012? Tell us in the comments.