Prosser joins list of departing city managers

Longtime former Marion City Manager Jeff Schott says it's been an uncommonly tough last year or so on city managers in Eastern Iowa.

Schott commented on Tuesday as the Cedar Rapids City Council and City Manager Jim Prosser were parting company and while the city of Iowa City continues to make plans to replace its former city manager, Michael Lombardo.

West Branch, West Union, Independence and Clinton all are on a partial list of other cities in which the city manager or city administrator has left the job, said Schott, who served just under 20 years as Marion's city manager before leaving in late 2006 to work as program director at the Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Iowa.

“In my 30 plus years of work in local government in Iowa, I don't ever recall so much activity at one time,” Schott said. “I think there are pressures on city managers, and I don't know if it's related to economic conditions or overall political conditions. I just don't know.”

Schott said each case, no doubt, has its unique issues, and in Cedar Rapids, one unique issue is that Prosser was the city's first city manager after the city moved from a commission government with full-time council-member administrators to a government with a part-time council and a full-time city manager.

“It's well understood that a manager who is the first manager in a community usually has a little shorter longevity associated with that,” said Schott. “It's tough where you had a political culture geared toward one form of government and you change to a city-manager form.

“And if that wasn't hard enough, the city then had a cataclysmic flood. That put stress on every aspect of the community.”

Schott said he had come to know Prosser both through Prosser's participation on panels at the Institute of Public Affairs and through comments other city managers have had about Prosser.

“He has a very strong reputation among the city-manager community for knowledge and professionalism,” Schott said.

Prosser's last day

Meanwhile on Tuesday, Prosser was finishing up his duties and saying goodbye to city employees. He declined an interview about his resignation, which he announced on Monday.

He was still working Tuesday afternoon, and was quick to note that the latest report about the city's property valuations shows that residential property in the city has climbed 5.7 percent in value since Jan. 1, 2007.

“In my view, that's a good indication that, while we're certainly not fully recovered here, residential values have stayed strong,” Prosser said.

In a statement he released to city employees and later to the public, Prosser thanked the City Council, city employees and Cedar Rapidians for giving him the chance to serve the city.

Among City Hall accomplishments, Prosser listed government reorganization, improved service, more public participation, better planning for the future and flood recovery.