Leading up to and since the swearing in of the new Peoria City Council in January, city hall has gotten a facelift, not in its architecture, but in its plans to realize the city’s “full potential,” as new Mayor Jason Beck proclaimed on the campaign trail.
Now three months in, the city is in a leadership dearth with a divided council, but still pushing forward with “audacious” goals for Peoria, as new City Manager Henry Darwin has described them.
Beck set the stage by bringing in Darwin, but left the council split, with some members contending the city should have conducted a search for candidates to fill the position of former City Manager Jeff Tyne, which lacked transparency, data and choice, they said.
Three out of seven council members dissented on the Darwin vote — Brad Shafer, Michael Finn and Bill Patena.
Dissenting council members said Darwin’s resume is impressive, but more options should have been available.
“I feel like the most important decision the council has is selecting and appointing and hiring our city manager...,” Shafer said. “I want to be more transparent to our constituents and say, ‘Hey, we had the opportunity of opening up this position and received X amount of applications; we went through different rounds of interviews, and based on interviewing 20-25 candidates, this is the most qualified candidate and this is why we are selecting this individual to be our city manager.’”
Shake-up
An exodus of high-level Peoria officials began not long after Beck was elected last November.
Deputy City Managers Erik Strunk, Andy Granger and Real Estate Development Officer Scott Whyte stepped down after the election. City Manager Jeff Tyne on Nov. 22, 2022 announced his resignation from the city. His final day was Jan. 30.
City Attorney Vanessa Hickman stepped down Jan. 4.
Then Deputy City Manager Katie Gregory was fired and Communications Director Briana Cortinas resigned on the same day, March 6.
No reason was given for the termination of Gregory or the resignation of Cortinas.
The shake-up in the upper ranks of Peoria city staff has left a void in leadership including a team of zero deputy city managers when once were three.
Seven employees in leadership positions have left overall since Beck’s election, and none have been filled permanently aside from Darwin and now City Attorney Emily Jurmu.
At the same time, a former city economic development director and employee at Beck’s company, TYR Tactical, was brought in for a newly created position.
Former Peoria Economic Development Director Rick Buss, who was fired under former Mayor Cathy Carlat, was hired back in February. A new position was created for him — assistant city manager.
Under his purview as city manager, Darwin created the position and selected Buss to fill it.
The city council was kept out of the decision to hire Buss, and no other candidates were interviewed for the position, in much the same manner Darwin was brought into the city with no official job posting.
City manager, city attorney, and city judge are the only positions required to be hired with council approval, according to the city charter.
However, some people close to the situation say with assistant city manager as a new position, coupled with the fact Buss is a previous employee who was terminated, should warrant full disclosure to the council, in public or at the very least, in advance of the action.
Previously, Buss had been the government affairs director for Beck’s company TYR Tactical since at least May 2022.
During the past 15 years, he has left a trail of spotty employment. During his more than four-year employment with the city of Maricopa as city manager, Buss along with the city’s IT manager were investigated by Arizona Department of Public Safety for allegedly illegally recording conversations while working for the city.
Buss was dismissed by the city of Maricopa in mid-August 2007. The investigation began in 2007, concluded in August 2008, and amounted to a 600-page report including interviews with about a dozen employees and city contractors.
The Arizona Attorney General’s office concluded there was insufficient evidence to support criminal charges against Buss on June 16, 2009.
After more than three years as assistant city manager at the city of Surprise, Buss was given the option of being fired or resigning in February 2018. He chose resignation, but again no reasons were given to the public.
Buss initially started with Peoria in February 2018. His termination in 2021 as the city’s economic development director led to the severing of a partnership with developer Vintage Partners, which had plans to redevelop Old Town Peoria.
Buss was let go from his position with Peoria in May 2021. At the time his salary was $145,000.
None of the parties said at the time why Buss was terminated.
When he was economic director for Peoria, Buss reported to Gregory, who was his supervisor. Now Buss is back in the position of assistant city manager and after two weeks of his hiring, Gregory was fired.
A statement sent to Peoria Independent by city spokesman Tim Eiden stated Beck did not create the position of assistant city manager, nor was he involved in the hiring process. Also, Buss did not fire Gregory, the statement added.
“Buss is not authorized to terminate employees and had no part in the departure from the city of Peoria of former Deputy City Manager Katie Gregory,” Eiden said.
Peoria Councilmember Mike Finn said keeping fiscal responsibility in mind, anytime the city is creating a position at the city manager level, council should know about it, especially taking into consideration Buss’s employment history, as well as the higher level salary.
Finn added Gregory was a huge asset to Peoria and now there is a void in leadership at the deputy city manager level.
“To say that I was surprised when I got word of Katie’s firing — that is a gross understatement. She was the last standing deputy city manager and great at her job. Katie has done so many things in her 23 years to move this city into the future and make it what it is today, and now all three city deputy managers are gone,” Finn said. “I used to have a really good knowledge base of what was happening in the city and good council direction, much of that thanks to Katie and those leaders who are now gone. Now I feel that knowledge base is dwindling and as a tenured councilmember, I am being kept at arm’s length.”
Goals and Initiatives
The new leadership at city hall has brought new goals and initiatives.
Some of those goals include bringing an airport to the city, which starts with costs of $200,000 for a feasibility study and $300,000 for airport consulting and lobbying. Another goal is a $4.5 million joint-use helicopter for police and fire to improve public safety.
These items have been worked into the proposed fiscal year 2024 budget, which must be approved in the coming months.
To tackle these goals, council recently approved $238,000 to create an Office of Innovation as well as $72,000 for an employee engagement survey.
Darwin said the Office of Innovation is tasked with assisting individual city departments in creating and executing Peoria’s “audacious” goals, and the purpose of the survey is to eventually identify process improvement initiatives.
“It is abundantly clear that mayor and council have big plans for the city of Peoria,” Darwin said. “And our employees of course are going to be a big part of executing on those plans.”
Members of the Office of Innovation and Darwin will help every department within the city execute on the agenda and policy direction of the mayor and council.
In addition, the new department will provide training and support for all city of Peoria staff on basic problem solving skills and techniques to reach those goals.
Darwin said the department is new to the city but is not uncommon in other municipalities. He said the cities of Tempe, Glendale and Mesa have similar offices with similar types of tasks, as well as other municipalities throughout the country.
The new department is planned for about four employees — a director, one senior staff member and possibly one or two junior staffers.
Beck said the city is “not innovative” and needs to change that. He said the new Office of Innovation will save anywhere between $5 million and $10 million a year.
“The reason why is because we are actually going to drive revenue by bringing businesses in,” Beck said. “Right now there is a mantra where businesses skip over Peoria because we are not innovative. We are not thinking in the terms of business. We need to change that and the way to do that is through this type of process.”
The recently approved Gallup survey that measures employee engagement has been used by organizations for more than 75 years, according to a city document.
For many years, Gallup has measured and evaluated the effectiveness of the 12 questions that make up its Q12 Engagement Survey as an indicator of employee engagement within an organization.
As they continue to engage organizations, they have worked with a large number of organizations, industries, and individuals to amass an extensive database on which to allow organizations to compare how they scored against others in their industry, nationally, or globally, the document said.
Darwin said Peoria leadership will use the scores to begin implementing solutions to increase employee engagement within their departments in addition to identifying process improvement initiatives. Gallup provides engagement resources, training, and tools that leadership can use to begin to define action plans and activities based on their individual department and division results, he said.
“The survey evaluates the employees of an organization and their engagement. It’s not about job satisfaction so much as it is about engagement. The fact of the matter is that engaged employees in any organization will help that organization do big things,” Darwin said.
Philip Haldiman can be reached at phaldiman@iniusa.org, or on Twitter @philiphaldiman. We’d like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments, pro or con, on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org.
Meet Philip Haldiman is an award-winning journalist who most recently took first place for investigative reporting in 2023 from Arizona Newspapers Association. He joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2015, covering Sun City West his first year. Since 2016, he has covered the city of Peoria. Prior to coming to INI, he was a reporter with The Arizona Republic for seven years, covering numerous cities throughout the Valley. Before that, he was a freelance writer.
Community: Haldiman spearheads the Peoria Independent Hometown Heroes Awards program, honoring local individuals and businesses that give back to the community. He has hosted local candidate forums over the years and is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists. Haldiman also served as a member of the Journalism Program Community Advisory Board at Glendale Community College. Outside journalism, Haldiman served as a member of the city of Peoria Complete Count Committee for the Census, 2019-2020. Lastly, he has served as a member of his HOA governing board since 2021.
Education: Arizona State University with a BA in Journalism and Mass Communications and a BA in Theater.
Random Fact: Haldiman is a fourth-generation Arizonan as well as wrote and produced an autobiographical comic book about his time spent in Hollywood and his life as a cult film star.
Hobbies: He enjoys hiking Arizona’s mountainous landscapes and is currently working on a play for the stage.
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