Ron Massey learned to be a city manager in the U.S. Army. Now he’d like to put that experience to work for Emporia.
“Most people don’t recognize that the Army has cities,” said Massey, who held the position at West Point, N.Y. and at two U.S. military communities in Germany before returning to civilian life. “What you realize is that you have to work with a large civilian workforce for 99 percent of what needs to be done on a military base. It does have private contractors and companies, and they don’t respond to orders the same as soldiers do. And then you have the soldiers’ spouses and their kids. So you make constant decisions based on what the community needs.”
These days, Massey is the assistant city manager for public works and utilities in Corpus Christi, Texas. Those services, the city’s infrastructure, make up about half of Corpus Christi’s budget.
“We provide the services that everyone takes for granted,” Massey said. “And when you can’t flush your toilet or get a glass of water and it’s a major crisis.”
Massey is one of two candidates for the job of Emporia’s city manager. Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, Massey holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of Dayton and a master’s degree in management from the University of Central Texas, near Fort Hood. He came into the military after serving in ROTC in college.
Like most military men, he ended up living in several places around the U.S. and overseas. As a result, he said, he’s not especially tied down to any one part of the country. But the Midwest does have a special appeal, he said.
“My wife and I enjoy the change of seasons,” Massey said. “But this is the first time my wife and I have lived this far south. Winter here lasts maybe two weeks and it really is very, very hot for an extended period of time.”
After being assigned to city management by the Army, he found he had a taste for it. On re-entering civilian life, he became the public works director of Franklin, Mass. before going to Corpus Christi in 1999.
Working for a completely civilian community did take some getting used to, he said. In the Army, he noted, the rules come down from Washington. In a city government, the council or commission sets its own rules. The issues are basically the same, he said, but resolving them isn’t. Instead of one commanding officer, there’s a whole elected commission to work with.
The result is a balancing act.
“A good city manager has to understand what the priorities of the elected officials are and help ... accomplish those priorities, but do it in a way that satisfies the majority of the needs of the community,” he said. “It’s a little more challenging if you have to achieve a consensus of decision-makers.”
More often than not, Massey said, the key is communication. That took center stage in the debate over where to put a wastewater treatment plant in Corpus Christi.
The plant in question was 70 years old and due to be overhauled. But in those 70 years its neighborhood by the city’s port had changed. Now it sat near a baseball stadium and an outdoor entertainment venue, among other things, and it seemed obvious that the time had come to move it.
The problem, of course, was that no one wanted it in their neighborhood. A number of sites were studied and when the time came to pick one, Massey laid out the case as thoroughly as possible. One site, he said, seemed to offer maximum advantage with the least possible bother.
“We had to lay out for the council all the advantages and disadvantages of the various sites,” Massey said. “And we were able to convince the council to place the site near that neighborhood because it was the site that benefited the majority of the community and was the most cost-effective site.”
The staff then worked with the neighborhood, Massey said, to try to explain the benefits of having the plant there.
If hired, Emporia would be his first tour as the top city manager since leaving the Army. But it’s a comfortable size for a new chief executive, he said. Emporia has about 27,000 people, less than a tenth of the population of Corpus Christi.
He’s already used to dealing with a diverse population — Corpus Christi is about 60 percent Hispanic. Massey said his community has also looked at ways to share some operations with the county. The two have a combined 911 center, although an effort to share jail services fell apart when the county raised the rates.
Massey said he knew of Emporia’s efforts to keep and draw businesses. That’s challenging anywhere these days, he said.
“People don’t understand that the idea of a worldwide economy changes the business model we’re used to,” he said. “You’ve got factories in the U.S. competing with factories around the world, and it doesn’t matter how much you want an industry in your community. If your industry can’t produce a product at a price they can sell on the worldwide market, they’re going to close.”
A city has to know its advantages and capitalize on them, he said, much as Corpus Christi has done with the tourist trade. And in drawing businesses, he said, a city can’t afford to ignore incentives.
“That’s what makes the difference,” he said. “There are people all over the U.S. that are offering different kinds of incentive packages. Businesses will come and ask what you’re willing to contribute. You have to make a decision — what is really important to the community? — and based on that, put together an incentive package.”
That question of what’s important to the community should be at the heart of every city issue, he said.
“I try to pay attention to what concerns people in our community and address those concerns,” Massey said. “The only reason cities are in business is to support their citizens.”