Corbett didn't have the needed 6 votes to oust Prosser; but Prosser backers Podzimek and Wieneke say anti-Prosser climate on council turned too tough

CEDAR RAPIDS - Something clearly has been ready to give at City Hall, and it did on Monday: City Manager Jim Prosser resigned, ending his 44-month run as the city's first professional city manager.

Prosser's resignation comes a little more than three months into Mayor Ron Corbett's term, and just six short days after Corbett's working majority on the City Council removed the flood recovery duties at City Hall from Prosser's oversight and told Greg Eyerly, the city's flood-recovery directory, that he was reporting directly to the council and not to Prosser.

One of Corbett's allies on the council, Don Karr, was particularly tough on Prosser and his staff at last week's council meeting, which prompted some contentious back and forth between the majority on the council and those in the minority.

The split on the council was evident Monday in response to Prosser's resignation.

“I think Jim felt it was time for him to move on, that it was time to turn the reins over to someone new,” the mayor said in offering an explanation for Prosser's resignation.

Karr, though, made no bones about the fact that one of his campaign goals last fall was to work to remove Prosser from the city manager's post.

“When Jim was first hired, he was good for the job,” Karr said. “But the flood came and we haven't had the results we've wanted. Now the new council is on board, and we have new ideas and new ways of doing things. And I don't think he felt comfortable with us.”

Council members Tom Podzimek and Chuck Wieneke both expressed disappointment last night with Prosser's departure, and both said that those on the council pushing for his resignation had not treated him fairly.

“I'm surprised Jim's taken as much as he has,” Podzimek said. “If Jim decided to sue the city on grounds of a hostile work environment, I think I would testify on his behalf. It has been terrible. And we have not done him right.”

Wieneke, who has been a career officer in the military and who held an executive position in state government, called Prosser “one of the most professional people I've ever met.”

“The city was lucky to have him,” he said.

Corbett acknowledged Monday that he did not have the six of nine required votes to force Prosser's resignation, but Wieneke said, “I think it just reaches a point where the grief you keep taking isn't worth it anymore.”

Podzimek said Corbett has decided to replace the city's council/manager government with a strong-mayor form of government without asking the public who voted the former into place in June 2005.

Corbett dismissed such claims and, instead, he spoke highly of Prosser and what he said would be Prosser's place in city history as the first city manager who took on a new form of government and a flood disaster in the span of 44 months.

“There isn't a city manager in the country who has had two significant events like that during their tenure,” Corbett said. “The council, the past council and the community is appreciative of what Jim has done. We close one chapter in our city's history, and we will open another one tomorrow.”

Prosser's last day at City Hall is Tuesday, and he will receive a year's salary and health benefits until he finds another job, Corbett said.

Prosser earns $165,000 a year, the same salary he began with. He never accepted a raise.

In the short term, Finance Director Casey Drew will take over as acting city manager, Corbett said. He said the council may hire an interim city manager as it searches for a permanent replacement for Prosser.

Prosser on Monday returned a call, but declined to comment.

Corbett, 49, and Prosser, 58, had a first, formal meeting on Nov. 7 at the Spring House restaurant in northeast Cedar Rapids, four days after Corbett won election in easy fashion over then-council member Brian Fagan.

At meeting's end, Corbett said he would conduct a 90-day assessment of Prosser's work once he took office in January.

“I'm not going to jump to the conclusion that it's going to be a positive or negative assessment,” Corbett said then. “It has to be an honest 90-day assessment period.”

At the time, Prosser noted that he had served as city manager at Richfield, Minn., for 13 years under three mayors, an experience that he said taught him how a city manager's job performance can turn up in an election campaign.

Prosser said his job as city manager was to serve the council and community and to help the council achieve its goals. He implied he had no interest in hanging on to the job at all cost.

“I work at the pleasure of the council, and I understand and respect that,” Prosser said then. “For me, this isn't about counting votes (among council members). It's about being effective.

“And if I'm not effective and I'm not contributing, then I shouldn't be here.”

After the first Corbett-Prosser meeting in November, council member Wieneke, who remains a strong Prosser supporter, said the last thing Prosser needed to worry about was finding another job.

“My biggest fear,” Wieneke said, “is that Jim Prosser will decide there's been enough criticism and he will just walk out the door.

“ … There are cities in the country that would steal Prosser in a minute and give him a lot more money,” Wieneke said in November.

Prosser left a job as a private financial consultant to cities to take the Cedar Rapids post in August 2006 after a stiff competition among a national field of city manager candidates.

In Prosser, the City Council got a professional manager who believed in long-term financial planning and in something he called “balanced decision-making,” concepts the majority on the 2006-2007 council and the 2008-2009 council embraced wholeheartedly.

Prosser was a fan of public open houses, in which residents turned out to talk to city staff and city consultants and to review white poster boards of information about the topic at hand.

Prosser demanded long hours of his top staff since the June 2008 flood, and no one worked longer hours than he did.

Even as floodwaters were receding, he and the City Council immediately decided to bring in experienced disaster consultants to help in the city's recovery. Lessons learned from other disasters, Prosser often said, required the city to work hard to document damage so the city could ensure it obtained all the disaster benefits from the federal government it deserved.

Corbett, though, has said flood recovery has gone too slowly, and since arriving at City Hall in January, the mayor has been pushing to take quicker actions.

In Prosser's leave-taking, the city is losing Iowa's Manager of the Year for 2008, an honor given Prosser by the Iowa City/County Management Association in September 2008. Prosser never told anyone in Cedar Rapids of the award, but the association made the honor public in December of 2008.