'Non-Sexy Work': Dave Stoneback Retires From Evanston After 39 Years

EVANSTON, IL — For the first time since the Reagan administration, Evanston's city government will next week be without longtime staffer Dave Stoneback.

Stoneback is due to retire Friday after nearly four decades in local government, during which he worked under nine city managers. His most recent appointment has been to the role of deputy city manager, a job he landed on a permanent basis last August.

Speaking at Monday's Evanston City Council meeting, Stoneback thanked all the elected officials and community members with whom he has worked since he took a job with the city in 1985.

"As a young man with a degree in water resources engineering and a few years experience working for a wastewater engineering firm, I was ecstatic to be offered the job of assistant superintendent at the water plant," Stoneback said. "The opportunities that the employment here with the city provided me were amazing."

Among the accomplishments Stoneback cited during his remarks at the meeting: overseeing the construction of a sewer improvement program that has "basically eliminated sewage backups" in local basements, leading a group of public works employees to do "non-sexy work but very important work," negotiating new water supply agreements with municipalities in Niles Township, aiding in the affordable removal of lead service lines and working with other municipal directors during the coronavirus pandemic.

Mayor Daniel Biss said he had learned a lot from Stoneback since he began working with him a dozen years ago as a state representative. He said the longtime public works staffer had been especially valuable amid recent turnover at the Civic Center.

"There's a lot of great things to be said for the city government that we have in place right now, one of those, however, is not an overwhelming wealth of experience at the top," Biss said.

"And the role that you've played, particularly as deputy city manager, given your experience, your knowledge of the organization, your understanding of how things have operated for so long, has been just invaluable," the mayor said, "invaluable in little ways that I didn't really understand until afterwards half the time."

After starting at the city running its water plant, Stoneback became superintendent of the water division and later utilities director. In 2015, he was promoted to head the Public Works Agency created by then-City Manager Wally Bobkiewicz's merger of two departments — a move that resulted in a federal civil rights lawsuit that taxpayers paid to settle for a half-million dollars. And in October 2021, Stoneback was promoted to interim deputy city manager by then-interim City Manager Kelley Gandurski.

"I tried my best to mentor directors and managers to assist them in making their careers rewarding and successful and satisfying here at Evanston," Stoneback said at Monday's meeting. "So again thank you for providing me this opportunities and making my work career a very rewarding experience."