City looks to hire an interim city manager; a couple of known faces appear in council audience

CEDAR RAPIDS - A couple of known faces suddenly have begun turning up the last couple weeks at the evening City Council meetings.

How come?

At the Tuesday evening meeting this week, council member Justin Shields announced that the council isn't going to replace City Manager Jim Prosser quickly. Shields, a member of the council's Personnel Committee, noted that the committee now has embarked on hiring a search firm to help find a replacement for Prosser, who signed a “separation” agreement with the council last month.

With a new city manager not expected to be on board before September, Shields said the Personnel Committee will be recommending the hiring of an interim city manager in the coming days.

Is that why Bill Hoekstra, the city's former transit director, has been sitting in the front row at the council meetings? Is he the guy?

Why, too, has Allan Thoms been in the room, in a back row?

Thoms held various executive positions for the state of Iowa from 1986 to 2001. He served as chief of staff to former Gov. Terry Branstad, director of the Iowa Department of Economic Development and chairman of the Iowa Utilities Board. He's a former commissioner of the Iowa Department of Transportation. Currently, is a vice chairman of the Cedar Rapids' City Planning Commission.

Also present this week was Richard Luther, who until recently was the city's development operations manager. He now is running his own consulting business and likely was in the audience to track a local development project under council consideration.

Both Hoekstra and Luther were thought to be possible in-house candidates for city manager back in 2006, when the city's form of government changed to a council/manager form and Prosser, a financial consultant in Illinois at the time, became the city's first city manager.