An Exit Interview with City Manager Bill Emlen

Davis City Manager Bill Emlen announced today that he would be resigning his position to accept the position of Director of Resource Management with Solano County.  Emlen’s last day will be on September 24th.  He started as a Principal Planner in May of 1997 and  was quickly promoted to Director of Community Development in 1998.  He has served as City Manager since February of 2006.

By all accounts, Emlen is well-liked by city employees and has a reputation for being affable and considerate in even the most contentious situations.  I’ve worked with Bill and his office on numerous issues over the years, and I’ve recently had the opportunity to spend more time with him during the Chamber of Commerce / City of Davis 2×2 meetings.

This afternoon, Bill was gracious enough to sit down with me in his office at City Hall for an Exit Interview with The Davis Voice.  Following, find my questions in bold and Emlen’s answers in italics.

1) What three accomplishments during your tenure as City Manager are you most proud of achieving?

It’s been 13 years, and I’ve got piles of stuff here about things we’ve done during that time… but more recently, a few things to do come to mind.

The restructuring of city operations that was done in response to the reality of recent budgets has been fairly effective in keeping service levels reasonable to the amount of human resource reductions we’ve had to make, which is something like 40 positions… I don’t think that there have been any huge impacts on the community because of those cuts.  It’s been a healthy process for the most part, we’ve been able to find new ways to do things more efficiently.  Now, our employees have been affected… there has been a lot of culture change within the organization… many of our employees  have been impacted pretty hard, and many are doing a lot of extra work.  I challenge anyone to find another city of this size that has the array of amenities and high level of dedication from staff.  Overall, I think that the restructuring process has been really smooth and ultimately beneficial to the City.

Now, this might not be as tangible to some, but I think that we do a really good job of being responsive to the public and community issues, that quick churning of issues.  My staff is very responsive to the community, and I feel like I’ve been a part of that.

Lastly, I’m really proud of the quality of infill projects that we’ve built… I think that they’ve improved over the years… I’ve heard so many comments from folks from other cities our size that are really impressed by the quality of our infill projects.

2) What two projects, that you helped initiate and are currently in the works, are you excited about?

The merger of our Fire Department with the UC Davis Fire Department.  Secondly, the continued evolution of the US Bicycle Hall of Fame as part of our economic strategy.

Any thoughts on where the Bike Hall of Fame should relocate if it gets a purpose built home in the future?  I think that it must remain downtown, and if it can move near the Train Depot that would be great.  Right now, we need to stay vigilant on making sure that it continues to be well utilized.

3) In hindsight, what’s one thing during your tenure that you would have done differently?

I’ve thought about this a lot over the past few years.  There has been a lot written and talked about with the issues of city employee compensation and benefits, but I think that we could have done a better job of providing the public with better information and a fuller picture.  We had a workshop a couple of years ago and it was well received, but we could have done more as the local and state news focused on public employee compensation and benefits.

And yes, we should have been more aggressive in acknowledgment that we have some problems and the Council has never been shy about re-examining this issue.  In fact, we’ve made very good progress with the latest round of negotiations in addressing some of these concerns.  But, I don’t think that employees should have been vilified the way that they have been at times over the past couple of years.  All of these benefits and compensation structures have evolved over decades of negotiations, and a lot of it has to do with the fact that the California and Davis economy has been up, up, up and there has been this upward spiral of better compensation packages for folks in both the private and public sector.

I just wish that we’d done a better job of providing a reasonable perspective while, of course, acknowledging the very real problem. But at the same time, there’s no need to vilify folks, many of which weren’t even here when these decisions were made.  The classic example is the health care cash-out.  When they implemented the cash-out benefit, the cost of medical insurance for a family was only $200 a month and now it’s like $1,400 per month.  So, the real problem is the exponentially rapid increase in the cost of health care nation wide,  but the benefit got caught up in that.  Yes, we now need to re-examine that benefit, but we should have done a better job at relaying this information to the public… you know, it’s difficult to explain that a benefit that has evolved over decades of labor negotiations is really difficult to change in one fell swoop.  So, educating the public about the matter caught me by surprise… And our citizens should be aware that Davis compensation packages are very reasonable and close to average, but the bigger question is: Have municipal compensation packages, as a whole, gotten out of control?

4) Most people know that you served as Principal Planner and Director of Community Development, which infill projects built during that time really achieved most city goals and are pleasing to it’s neighbors and the community as a whole?

I’m really proud of the Crepeville Building at 3rd & C (built by Chuck Roe) and the Chen Building (built by Lee & Grace Chen) at 2nd & H … I have to give credit to Ken Hiatt on both of these, and that’s no coincidence…  both have really unique places in the feel of the community and I think that most people really like how they turned out, how they look and feel.  The Oakshade Townhomes in South Davis was a real cutting edge project.  And an earlier project that I worked on is a small infill project on the south west corner of Covell & Mace that Dave Taormino built, they have a real nice porch, front yard, older style looking homes that is a great departure from the standard style suburban homes that were built at the time.

5) What piece of advice, in one sentence, would you give your successor?

Stay in perspective, breathe before reacting.  The reason that I say that is that I’ve seen these firestorms over public policy happen really quickly and then churn over and over.  It’s critical for anyone who does this job to be aware that folks in this community are very protective of this town (with good reason) and they’re going to act quickly on a lot of items.  So the job is to ensure that  you have all the information and a broad perspective, and not over-react or over-commit before offering a solution… stay in perspective and breathe before reacting.

6) You’ve presided over some of the most difficult budget and employee negotiations in the history of the City.  What have you heard from other City Managers regarding the use of an outside labor negotiator? Should the City consider that option for the next round of labor contracts in 2012?

I do think that for very pragmatic reasons, it would be beneficial to use independent labor negotiators, mainly because of the time commitment that we’ve had to put into the process.  However, I’m not really convinced that a negotiator would score some home run that we’re unable to achieve.  Now, there is a cost differential here, a really good person is going to come with a very high billable hour.  But, to be used as a tool in some situations, depending on what’s on the table,  it would definitely be a good thing.

7) Do you use DavisWiki? How often?

Of course I do!  I probably use it several times a week, mainly to look up what time a restaurant opens or to learn about a local business or group.  It’s also fascinating to read up on historical city politics and other city business.  But really, I like reading the comments about what and where to eat, that kind of thing.

8) Top three favorite restaurants in Davis?

Oh, I can’t limit it to three but I do have several favorite dishes!  I mean this town really does have so many good restaurants.  I love the Thai Noodle Salad at Cafe Bernardo, the burgers at Burgers & Brew are hard to beat, the Pork Sandwich and the Veggie Burger at Bistro33.  Also, the Triple Berry Bar at Zia’s… I’ll keep coming back for all of that.

Burning question from my friends, do we need another Thai Restaurant and Frozen Yogurt shop? It seems like we can never get enough, I don’t know.  But really, on a policy level, it seems like at some point we might want to look into some more diverse options to mix in with all of the great locally owned stores.

9) What one thing in Davis will draw you back for visits once the job is done on September 24th?

I’ll always becoming back to Davis, I promise I won’t be a stranger.  In fact, we use to come here all the time before we moved here… we adopted a dog from the Yolo SPCA during a Farmers’ Market back in the mid-90′s!  We’ll be back for the restaurants, the Amgen Tour and all of the other great events that make Davis unique.