Randy Sullivan is back in a familiar seat as the Interim City Manager for the City of Holbrook. The administration has outlined a process for the council to recruit applicants for the permanent position, and Sullivan plans to be one of them. Sullivan has worked for over 15 years at the city, primarily as its finance director, but also as the water/wastewater supervisor and as mentioned earlier, interim city manager.
Sullivan has been in his current position since Aug. 7 and has already hit the ground running in an effort to get things back on track. “Right off the bat I realized that we have no crews. There’s been so much negativity about work not getting done but a lot of it has been we don’t have people, so projects can’t be done. We need positivity, and hopefully that will snowball and get people motivated to give back again. We just need to remove some of those mental barriers.”
According to Sullivan, the city has had 15 people resign in the last four years and those positions were never refilled, “That’s a million dollars a year that puts us short-handed but makes the budget look good.” Sullivan has already begun hiring staff, starting with Misty Hatch who is filling the vacancy made when Stacy Hatch left four years ago. Filling this position will allow City Clerk Lisa Hunt to immerse herself in her official duties, rather than answering phones and being the frontline for the public.
“If I’m going to manage, a balance needs to happen. People say that a city manager should just be in the office, but it’s more than that. You have to be out in the field too. I shouldn’t be sitting here setting agendas, that’s a city clerk’s job. The vision is that when Pat Nichols retires next year, Hatch can move into that position as human resource director. And once we get some crews, we can do some special projects.”
When Sullivan says the city needs some crews, he’s not exaggerating. Currently there are only two full time employees in the streets department, along with one part time employee. Prior to the previous manager there were as many as six people in the streets department. Sullivan is looking to add up to two employees at the moment.
There are also only two employees in the facilities department. One who is managing the levee, which he has not done for quite some time although it requires a lot of attention. This is now being worked on every day with an inspection of the levee slated for next year. The other is working on renovating the interior of the police department.
Sullivan quickly found out the difficulties in being shorthanded, after the council requested the city get to work on repainting the cemetery wall. With no one else available, Sullivan started the job himself. He soon found out that it was a much bigger job than for one person, especially one has so many additional duties. It may take longer than he’d like, but he said it will get done. “If I’m done in here (the office), I’ll work on it. The water department did some work on it when they had time. It would’ve been nice to start sooner in the summer and hire some high school kids. I plan on doing that next year so that they can do those jobs. If he or she is a high school senior and that person is a good worker, they could maybe find a permanent position here.”
In the water wastewater department, there used to be eight employees and there’s now five. “At one point we were down to two employees so I went over there years ago to help because we’d lose a guy for two weeks at a stretch because he had to read the meters. So, again, you can’t do a project with two people. When working on lift stations, you need at least three people for safety reasons.” Sullivan admits that even with jobs being advertised, applicants are in short supply, much like the rest of the nation. So far, he’s only been able to fill one position in that department.
Although OSHA doesn’t require two employees at the wastewater treatment plant, the city’s standard operating procedure does require it. But again, for more than four years only one employee has been assigned there. This became an issue last year when that employee fell and was injured at the site but luckily was able to get to a phone and call for help. Sullivan said they will be looking to fill the second position at that location as well.
Sullivan believes the city has under-utilized Barbara Blythe, who handles code enforcement part time, two days a week. “Her background is owner rehab grants and SSP funds,” said Sullivan, which are funds used to restore low-income housing. “Our vision is to have Barbara apply for owner rehab SSP funds, which require guidelines be in place. We put in flyers in our bills because it requires a waitlist of people before we can apply. We need a trained building inspector with weatherization, so we will train Michael Young to do that in order to get the grant but once we get the grant, we can hire a full-time person to do that using the grant funds,” said Sullivan.
Sullivan said for the moment, he is taking on economic development himself. He is joining NACOG (Northern Arizona Council of Governments) and has been meeting with the Arizona Commerce Authority on projects. He already met with a representative who went throughout the city with Sullivan and took an inventory of the vacant buildings and property that are available for purchase.
The pond, which was a concept introduced over five years ago for the city land located on the west end of Hopi Drive off of Buffalo Street, is once again being considered and is always on the table for Sullivan. “I’ve always had backup from other organizations to make it work. If the council is on board, I think it could be viable. It comes back to revitalizing that whole downtown. If we’re doing something community-wide it gets investments going and it snowballs from there. Also, Stantec (Engineering) has been working with the chamber of commerce to map the areas within the city where they can focus what businesses should be where for future development. It’s kind of like a master plan of downtown. A pond would be great there, it would bring businesses there, it would bring in new money.”
The previous city manager felt that any additional amenities such as a pond would be too difficult to manage for the parks department but Sullivan disagrees. “It doesn’t have to be all grass and greenery, we can use xeriscaping and it would be low maintenance, we would use flora natural to the environment.”
He noted that Arizona Game & Fish already said they would stock the pond. Walking paths could be created that would connect under the interstate to the Hidden Cove Golf Course and would allow that entire region to be upgraded, maintained and kept clean for the enjoyment of residents. Speaking on things to do for residents, Sullivan would like to see events come back to the community that used to be held in the past such as the mud run and scavenger run. “These events never make money but they did break even. The goal is to bring community together.”
Sullivan thinks he’s up to the task of managing the city if the council should choose to let him continue on a permanent basis. “I think I’ve matured over time and have learned a lot. Now’s a good time for Holbrook and I hope I can contribute to making things happen.”
Sullivan knows firsthand that Holbrook is a good place to live and raise a family. “What makes Holbrook great is the sense of community, but we’ve lost it over the past so many years. I believe we can get that back.”
