Will
We Love Him?
A
closer look at our likely new city manager.
By
Alan Pittman
 |
'I
think he [Torrey] satisfied himself that I provide a balanced
approach in my dealings with people from economic development,
from the chamber of commerce to the business community, as well
as people that are concerned about growth
and a sustainable environment.' —Dennis Taylor |
The
finalist for Eugene's powerful city manager job is a decorated former
Marine who now owns three pairs of Birkenstocks.
In Vietnam Dennis Taylor says he led a platoon of
50 Marines in an assault on a hill occupied by an enemy regiment.
"Everybody was shooting at everybody," said Taylor of the head-to-head
combat. His battalion commander died and Taylor was shot in the
arm.
Taylor won a fist full of medals for the battle.
The bullet severed a forearm nerve, and he went through three hospitals
before regaining full use of his arm.
He never went back to Vietnam. After his three year
service was finished, he returned to San Francisco in 1971 and joined
a group of veterans who protested against the war. "Many of us served
with honor and then ...were part of the reason we were successful
in changing that [war] policy, albeit a little late."
After Vietnam, Taylor says, "I decided I wanted
to do something more pacific and build stuff rather than be involved
in war, so I joined the Volunteers in Service to America." VISTA,
the domestic Peace Corps, set Taylor to work advocating for the
poor in Montana. He traveled throughout the state working closely
with single mothers and Native Americans. "I lived on people's floors,"
he says.
After two years in VISTA, Taylor pursued his long
interest in government by working as a state health planner. He
and his social worker wife of 28 years, Joan, began taking in problem
foster children who couldn't find homes elsewhere. They helped raise
five foster girls and later two daughters of their own. Their older
daughter recently finished serving two years in the Peace Corps
in Kazakhstan.
Taylor rose in state government to head Montana's
Personnel Division and Developmental Disabilities Division and to
serve as deputy director of the State Department of Justice. In
between state jobs, he worked for a year as budget director for
the city of Helena and for two years as chief administrative officer
for Missoula. "I liked working for cities best," he says.
After working for Montana's Democratic attorney
general, Taylor took over as city manager of Helena from 1997 to
1999 when the mayor of Billings recruited him for the manager job
at the state's largest city.
Last week, the Eugene City Council emerged from
meetings shrouded in secrecy to announce that Taylor was the finalist
for the city manager job in Eugene. Councilors and city staff plan
to travel to Billings later this month for background checks before
making a final offer.
Great
Divide
Eugene has about a third more residents and twice
as many city employees as Billings, but the biggest difference is
cultural. While Eugene is a college town with a reputation for anarchists,
aging hippies and tofu, Billings is a bedrock conservative city
founded by a railroad corporation and built around oil and sugar
beet refineries. Taylor admits there's a big divide between Billings
and Eugene. But he points to his two and a half years working for
city government in Missoula. "Billings is much, much, much more
conservative than Missoula. Missoula is a very progressive community
and has a lot of the attributes of Eugene," he says.
"There are a lot of things about Eugene and Missoula
that are more congruent with the things I like to do," says Taylor.
"From a livability, from a culture, from even a level of commitment
that the community has to being involved in civic affairs, I think
I'll find that much more attractive."
Taylor, a fan of Ken Kesey, says if hired he'd like
to put on his Birkenstocks, shorts and a T-shirt and head down to
Saturday Market to work. "It's a good place to see people and do
some work and listen to what's on people's minds."
While Eugeneans may see Taylor at the market, they
won't see him on a golf course. Unlike many local big wigs, Taylor,
56, doesn't play golf.
Taylor says he'll be a good listener if he comes
to Eugene. "You kind of have to adapt to what the community values,"
he says. "I'll have to learn how Eugene does things."
Taylor says he learned how to adapt growing up when
he lived in 23 different cities as his father worked at Air Force
bases throughout the nation.
Many professional city managers "envy" the job in
Eugene and the city is widely recognized for its livability and
amenities, Taylor says. Moving from semi-arid Big Sky Country to
the rainy Willamette Valley doesn't worry Taylor. "Billings had
nine inches of rain last year ... and I think you guys get 55 inches
of rain a year. But it's probably not going to be 20 below, or 30
below."
Solid
References
Taylor comes with solid references. Billings Mayor
Chuck Tooley calls him an "outstanding" public servant with "complete
integrity."
Billings Councilor Jan Iverson describes him as
a "wonderful" manager, a "workaholic" and "team builder" with great
honesty and intelligence.
"If Taylor gets the top job in Eugene, that city's
gain will be our loss," lamented an editorial in the Billings
Gazette. The paper praised Taylor as "a great open-government
advocate" who has "even opened his annual job performance reviews
to the public." Taylor has been open, "even when transparency didn't
help move his immediate proposals forward."
The paper described Taylor as a "key player" in
keeping SYSCO Food Services in town with a deal to sell the company
city land for expansion by relocating city public works facilities.
Taylor moved forward long-stymied capital improvement and new revenue
plans. Taylor's idea for a right-of-way fee for utilities was opposed
by business groups and defeated in a local referendum but "nobody
has presented a better alternative" for raising revenue, the paper
said.
Taylor's utility fee, passed by an 8-1 council vote,
generated strong hostility from many in the local business community
when he proposed it two years ago. Taylor didn't back down from
the pressure from business groups. He accused utilities of scare
tactics in threatening to pass the tax through to consumers and
pointed to a $400,000 tax break Qwest recently got from the state
Legislature.
Lingering business hostility drew concern from Mayor
Jim Torrey, a former president of the Eugene Chamber of Commerce,
Taylor says. While Torrey was initially concerned that Taylor wasn't
sufficiently "business friendly," Taylor says the mayor later talked
to more business interests who were supportive. "I think he [Torrey]
satisfied himself that I provide a balanced approach in my dealings
with people from economic development, from the Chamber of Commerce
to the business community, as well as people that are concerned
about growth and a sustainable environment."
Torrey told the Gazette that he had initially
been concerned about Taylor's business friendliness but after talking
to more businessmen, "I'm now convinced that he is a balanced manager
candidate, and that's all I could ever ask for. ... In every instance
they all said good things about him," Torrey told the paper.
Shades
of Green
Although Taylor points out, "there's not much of
an environmental activist community in Billings," he says he's had
good relations with environmental groups when working in Missoula
and Helena.
Kelly Corley, an organizer with the Yellowstone
Valley Citizens Council, an environmental group involved in city
planning and growth issues, says she's new to her job but has heard
that Taylor has a good reputation in the environmental community.
Theresa Keaveny of Montana Conservation Voters says
she's heard from members that Taylor has had an "open ear" and "open
door" to environmental concerns.
On the long running battle between pro-sprawl and
anti-growth advocates that has split Eugene nearly down the middle
for years, Taylor says it's up to the community to decide. "What
I think is important is that there be a commitment to planning,
that planning respect the community values, that you manage the
community development consistent with those values." He adds, "ensuring
that growth helps pay for the impacts to the community and is not
subsidized by the existing community is an important analysis that
should occur."
In a Gazette report about city growth, Taylor
noted widespread concern that growth was endangering the quality
of life that brought people to live in Billings. He said he wouldn't
like to see the city grow much faster than its current moderate
rate. "We are growing in what I would say is a manageable manner,
and a sustainable manner." Taylor told the paper good planning will
help Billings "grow into a city, and not just an overgrown small
town."
Taylor unsuccessfully pushed to beef up the Billings
planning department, calling the low staffing levels compared to
other Montana cities "embarrassing." The Billings planning department
(which also serves the surrounding county) has seven employees.
Eugene's planning and development department employs 105.
To conserve water, Taylor recently recommended that
the city revise fee schedules to promote conservation. He recently
backed away from using a legal technicality to block a voter referral
of a council ordinance to fluoridate the city's drinking water.
"The city has to move at the speed of democracy," he told the Gazette.
In an USA Today article on Kmart closing
stores due to competition from Wal-Mart, Taylor called the big box
retailer's demise "poetic justice." Kmart "became category killers
and cut the heart out of local businesses. ... They're experiencing
the same phenomenon on the edges of our cities ... that they visited
upon Main Street when they first came to town."
In Helena, Taylor recognized the importance of
small local businesses to economic development. "The most sustainable
sort of economic growth is when everyone in town adds one employee,"
he told the Associated Press.
He later told the Montana Standard that public
resources such as good schools, parks, trails and downtowns attract
entrepreneurs and knowledge-based industry vital to economic development.
In dealing with anti-war protesters, Taylor says
he'll draw on his experience with protests in Missoula and his own
experience as a war time soldier and later an anti-war protester.
Two months ago, Taylor told USA Today, "I
have special concerns about those who fight, our sons and daughters
who will be in harm's way. ... I worry on behalf of all of us who
sit back here in our armchairs. I have a couple of nephews joining
up. People can talk about war, but it's different when it is your
own children."
Taylor declined to say directly if he supports war
with Iraq. "That's really for the City Council to express the political
preferences of the community."
Power
Sharing
Taylor says he'd leave a lot up to the City Council.
He says the city charter leaves things like personnel matters to
the manager, but in other decisions the line separating manager
from council decisions is actually "a gray area where we try to
work together."
Billings Councilor Shirley McDermott says one area
where Taylor drew a line was in forbidding councilors to talk directly
to city department heads and other staff. She says it was "cumbersome"
to have to go through him to get permission to ask questions. A
similar edict from Eugene acting City Manager Jim Carlson has caused
friction with some Eugene councilors.
A manager's job is to "work within the policy direction
of the mayor and city council," Taylor says. Taylor says if a council
didn't do what he recommended, he would implement the council decision
with the "same zeal" that he would if they had followed his advice.
McDermott says Taylor is good at following council
direction. But she says he gives the council strong recommendations
on what to do. "He doesn't give us both sides of the story and stand
back."
"I like to get things done," Taylor says. "I don't
think anyone would describe me as laid back. But I work with the
council, I work with the management team."
Taylor says his collaborative approach is one of
his greatest strengths. "The ideal city manager is like the conductor
of an outstanding symphony; they have the ability to draw out the
talent of every member of their city organization. They also act
in a way that helps draw out the talent in the community, both through
the city council and through the neighborhoods and through individual
groups and stakeholders that have an interest in improving their
community."
"It's not just about what the city manager does,"
he says, describing the importance of working with councilors and
inspiring city staff to do good work. "I've always been fortunate
to work with people that make me look pretty good."
"Things that the city council have to decide are
very difficult, usually contentious and have a dimension of what
are the values of this community," Taylor says. "Communities like
Eugene and like Missoula are known for in-your-face government,
so it's a tough job for city councilors and city managers."
The last city manager hired from another city to
run Eugene certainly had a tough time. Her predecessor Mike Gleason
resigned the position after 15 years under widespread criticism
that he had become too close to development interests and ignored
council direction. When Elmer began making executive staff changes,
budget cuts and management reforms including examining millions
of dollars of contracted legal work, the entrenched department managers
that served under Gleason struck back with blistering anonymous
complaints to the City Council. Elmer, also under fire from developers
and the police union, was fired in 1998 after serving just over
one year.
Taylor says Elmer's experience does worry him. After
leaving a good job and friends in Montana, "I would hate to come
to Eugene for a short run as city manager."
Taylor says he would try not to recreate Elmer's
fate. He notes that the city now has many new executive staff, although
many remain from Gleason's 15-year tenure. "It's something a wise
city manager would think about and be careful and not make mistakes
that could lead to a similar result."
"City management is not for the faint of heart,"
Taylor says. "Sometimes you lose your job because you've done what
the majority of the city council wants you to do, what the community
feels is important or you've helped make or frame tough decisions
where people care strongly one way or another."
For his part, Taylor, 56, says he's committed to
stay in Eugene at least five years. He doesn't think he'll go back
to Montana state government, "but you never say never."
Taylor says he wants to stick around in Eugene,
but not too long. "There's a period of time where you can be effective
and give it your full energy, and so I try to recognize there's
a half life of a public management job and you need to recognize
it before everybody else does."