City Management: Keys to Success
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This book was inspired by the life and death of my good friend, John P. (Jack) Bond III. Jack was dying of cancer when he and I started talking about sharing our experiences in city management with others. The talks seemed to give Jack hope that he could still contribute to a profession he and I both loved. Jack was a contributor all his life- whether as a young army captain in Vietnam where he was awarded a Bronze Star or as an African-American breaking new ground in positions of leadership. In many ways our hospital talks reminded me of the wonderful story of Morrie Schwartz and Mitch Albom as described in the book "tuesdays with Morrie." Jack is gone. What we were going to do together I will now attempt to complete in his memory. This will be a difficult task for it was Jack who was the scholar, the writer and the driving force behind this effort. City management is a great profession. It can be a very rewarding and a very frustrating profession. An article in the March, 1999 issue of ICMA’s Public Management, titled "This Job Can Be a Nightmare" gives five excellent examples of the frustrations. While I share with the reader some of my worst moments in city management, I choose to remember the rewards. Jack and I loved being city managers! I was in the profession for 33 years and was a city manager for 26 of those years. Jack held many positions including Assistant City Manager, Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Assistant City Manger Miami, Florida; Assistant County Manager, Hillsborough County, Florida; City Manager of Petersburg, Virginia; County Manager of Durham Country, North Carolina and Chief Administrative Officer of Washington, D.C. We loved the excitement, the working with dedicated and talented people and belonging to a great profession and an outstanding professional organization ( International City/County Management Association). We enjoyed being in the "eye of the hurricane," and having people look to us to navigate them out of "troubled waters." Most of all, we liked making a positive difference in people’s lives. City managers are in a position to "make a difference" in people’s lives. We are in a position to help shape the community’s history, goals and values. It may be in just a small corner of this country of ours, but within that small area (city/county) we can make a difference- a positive difference in people’s lives. Not too many professions can make that claim. To say that I miss being a city manager would be an understatement of great proportion. Thus, let the reader be aware that city management is so deeply entwined with so many of the good things that have occurred in my life that it is impossible to be objective about the profession. I will not even try. By not writing this book sooner we lost Jack Bond’s experiences. This is a huge loss for Jack had many encounters as a black administrator that I did not have to deal with as a white administrator. Jack was also the most honorable and ethical person I have ever met. He had so much to share. While I know of many of the ups and downs in Jack’s long career, I do not feel that I can do justice to these events and will not try to write for Jack. I hope, however, my experiences and lessons learned over the years can help ease the way for those young men and women who choose city management as a career. If it does, my friend Jack Bond would be proud.
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About the Book
At last, a good book about one of the most exciting career opportunities available in the country today – city management. It is an exciting and rewarding career because all the great issues our society – crime, pollution, urban sprawl, economic development, traffic congestion, race relations and terrorism – are concentrated in our cities. City managers dealing with these issues are in a unique position to make a positive difference in the lives of people in their communities. This book will:
The book is a must read for anyone who has – or wants – a management position in the public sector.
About the Author
Orville Powell, M.P.A., is recognized in this country and internationally as an expert in the field of city administration. Mr. Powell has over thirty years experience as a city manager, assistant city manager and budget director of cities in North Carolina and Florida. He has worked as a consultant in the areas of economic development, citizen participation, governmental reorganizations, financial management and mass transit with local governments in the United States, Russia, Bulgaria, India, Swaziland and Zimbabwe. He is currently a clinical associate professor in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University, where he teaches graduate-level courses in public sector management.