A Town Manager for Culver

David Schoeff

It appears that Culver will be without a Town Manager again.  Dave Schoeff‘s resignation was announced in the Culver Citizen last week.  Our track record on retention for this position hasn’t been great, but I think good things have come from this position and I hope the Council will move quickly to fill it.

I have been involved with the Town Manager issue from the beginning.  I was involved with the Culver Second Century Committee through the Mary Means & Associates Needs Assessment and the Ratio Architects Charrette (1998).  The subject of a Town Manager was discussed in both of these.  When the first Town Manager was hired, a task force was formed including Town personnel and members of the public.  I was one of the latter.  Other task force members included Chandra Meavis (Town Clerk), Russ Mason (Councilman) and Lance Overmyer (Fire Chief).

The task force spent a considerable amount of time doing an internal assessment.  I have to admit that I was skeptical that it could work in Culver, but after listening to presentations from three different Town Managers from area communities of a similar size, I was swayed to believe that Culver could truly benefit from the creation of this position.  What made the difference for me was that two of the Town Managers that we interviewed had no formal training in government, but were good managers and were extremely effective in organizing their respective towns to run better because of this.

The task force took on the creation of a job description and the creation of a chain-of-command hierarchy.  We also defined the function of the department liaisons, something that was a carry over from before we had a Town Manager.  From there we wrote the ads for the position and culled the applicants down to three.  At that point, the Town Council joined us in interviewing the final three applicants and our first Town Manager, Mr. Jeffrey Sheridan, was selected.  The task force was disbanded at that point.  In retrospect, that may have been a mistake.  Our experience in researching and defining the position may have been useful in working with the new Town Manager and the Town Council in order to make the position successful.  Since I was not a Council Member, I was not briefed on all the “problems” that led to Mr. Sheridan leaving, but at least some of those problems regarded issues that we thought we had settled.  (Jeff went on to serve as the Town of Cumberland Town Manager for 8 years and is currently the Tipton County Economic Development Director.)

Since that time we have had four other Town Managers bringing the total to 5 in 10 years.  All resigned for different reasons.  All five Town Managers advanced the agenda of the Town and were able to accomplish things that part-time Council Members cannot be expected to handle.  In the time before and between Town Managers, much of the administrative work has fallen on the Clerk Treasurer.  This is not fair to the Clerk Treasurer as they have other responsibilities and often their need to work with the employees and the Council makes it difficult to also wear the hat of “manager”.

I’m concerned that the limited retention rate of Town Managers in Culver will affect our ability to hire another.  From past experience, the task of replacing the town manager has been tedious and slow.  In the interim, projects languish and at times past advancements are lost.  Hopefully the Council has already begun advertising the position.

David Schoeff Image Source: The Pilot News

Town Hall Image Source:  Town of Culver

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