Tough run for Eastern Iowa city managers, says Jeff Schott; first city manager into a community like Prosser can leave sooner rather than later, he says

CEDAR RAPIDS - 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.

By the way, Schott said his institute duties keep him too busy and his stress level too manageable should the city of Cedar Rapids ask him to serve as interim city manager between Prosser's departure on Tuesday and the hiring of a new Cedar Rapids city manager.

Mayor Ron Corbett on Tuesday said there is some sentiment on the City Council to forego hiring a search firm to help the city find Prosser's replacement. Corbett said Conni Huber, the city's human resources director, is quite capable of handling the search.

Meanwhile on Tuesday, Prosser was finishing up his duties and saying goodbye to city employees.

He returned a phone call – twice. But, for now, he declined an interview about his resignation, which he announced on Monday. He was not slated to attend the Tuesday evening council meeting.