Longview Council taps city's own parks director to be new city manager

Jennifer Wills called energetic and a 'good fit' for the community, but her administrative experience level is a concern

This is an expanded version of a story I posted earlier Wednesday evening.

After deliberating for four hours over two days behind closed doors, the Longview City Council on Wednesday night chose City Parks and Recreation Director Jennifer Wills to be the new city manager.

The vote to appoint Wills was 5 to 2, with council members Erik Halvorson and Kalei LaFave casting the sole no votes.

While expressing admiration for Wills, they said they would have liked to have had more time and a larger and stronger field of the final candidates beyond the four finalists interviewed.

Wills has been a popular, high-energy parks director. She was a finalist to become Centralia’s city manager last summer.

“I like her positive energy, her communication skills and enthusiasm,” and she was the “best fit” for the post, City Councilwoman Ruth Kendall said by phone after the meeting.

The city manager is Longview’s top administrator. It is a complex and diverse job that takes a bucketful of different skills. The manager is in charge of all employees and is answerable only to the city council. He/she supervises and oversees all departments, and their wide-ranging missions including police, fire, parks and utilities as well as budgeting, union negotiations, staffing and grant writing.

As parks and rec director, Wills managed a staff of 27. As city manager, she will have direct or indirect supervision of several hundred with the help of an executive team of department heads.

While lauded for her work at the parks department, Wills does not have anywhere near the range of administrative and budgeting experience of Kris Swanson, the city manager the council majority fired without cause in March. Council members Thursday acknowledged that Wills will need guidance.

Kendall said she had some reservations about the breadth of Wills’ experience, but she won the support of the community and staff during interviews and a public meet-and-greet session.

Kendall said the council worked hard to evaluate the candidates and consider community comments, noting that each council member read every comment card the city received about the candidates.

“We took that input very seriously,” she said.

The council asked staff to negotiate with Wills and have a proposed contract ready for discussion and action at its meeting on January 30.

“I believe Jennifer will be a great fit for the community” and will do good things with the help and direction of the council, Mayor Spencer Boudreau said by phone following the meeting.

Wills was chosen over finalists Blaine Oborn, the former city administrator for Oak Harbor, Washington; John Walsh, the city administrator for St. Helens, Oregon; and Brian Carlson, the budget and finance director for Kittitas County, Washington.

The four were selected from a field of 20 applicants from 11 states by the recruitment firm Colin Baenziger & Associates of Daytona Beach Shores, Florida.

Before the vote to choose Wills, Councilman Halvorson read a statement saying the decision was difficult and he would have liked more time. More than four finalists should have been brought forward, he added, while saying that he respected Wills and the other candidates.

Although Swanson was fired in March, the council did not even agree to start a search for a permanent city manager until July. It only hired Baenziger & Associates in late September, and the month-long application period opened November 1.

During the public discussion at Wednesday’s meeting, citizen Jason Still told the council that it wasted $34,000 on Baenziger and that the city should have spent more in order to get “more than other cities’ rejects.”

He said Wills is an excellent choice but “not now,” suggesting she is not ready for the position. He urged the city to restart the search process.

Mary Jane Melink, a former Longview councilwoman, rejoined that Longview’s city manager position “is not now a premier job” because anyone put in the post must deal with conflict on the council and a myriad of problems.

“We should be proud to offer this job to Jen,” she said.

Longview resident and Go 4th Festival organizer Arleen Hubble said she was disappointed that the three other candidates made little or no effort to learn much about Longview. Nevertheless, she said Willis has done an admirable job as parks director and applauded the council’s choice. (Hubble works closely with the parks department to organize Go 4th, which is held at Lake Sacajawea.)

Citizen Shawn Higgins told the council Wills has done a good job running parks and assumes she will do a good job as city manager.

Assuming that she agrees to a contract with the city, Wills will become Longview’s seventh city manager and second woman to hold the post. She will replace Jim Duscha, the city’s retired fire chief who has served as interim since Swanson’s firing.

All of Longview city managers but the first two — Walt Barham and Ed Ivey — were promoted from within the city’s own ranks. Wills’ selection continues that pattern.

Wills takes the helm at a crucial and challenging time for the century-old city that timber baron R.A. Long built. It’s facing a severe budget crunch for at least the balance of this decade and has significant maintenance backlogs in its parks and utilities infrastructure.

Longview continues to have a high property crime rate and substance abuse problems. Law and justice costs are rising. And, while the city-sponsored Hope Village pallet home community has successfully reduced the homelessness and blight, the problem persists and affordable housing remains in short supply. Economic growth and diversification have been sluggish, at best.

On top of that, Wills will be answerable to a city council that is philosophically split and that is still slowly recovering from the upheaval of terminating Swanson. And that issue will continue boiling, because the lawsuit alleging violations of state Open Meetings laws continues against the four council members who engineered her termination.

Wills has more than 18 years’ experience serving the Longview community. She holds a bachelor’s degree in recreation management from Springfield College and is a certified parks and recreation executive. Her leadership training includes programs with the National Outdoor Leadership School and the Municipal Forestry Institute.

Wills enjoys ultramarathon running, kayaking, and exploring the outdoors. She also dedicates time to reading and creative pursuits.

Duscha did not apply for the permanent position. He has faced hostility from Swanson’s supporters from the very start.

With his tenure nearly complete, he told the council he’ll soon be resting on a beach in Hawaii.