City Manager Finalist Interview: Mark Miller

In the fifth of , Troy City Council and administrators interviewed Troy Director of Economic and Community Development Mark Miller Thursday afternoon at Troy City Hall. .

Miller is one of five candidates for the position of Troy City Manager, which has been held by  following the departure of  earlier this year. The other four candidates are: , Oakland Township Manager; , Marine City Manager; , Tittabawassee Township Manager; and , Farmington City Manager.

5 questions for Mark Miller

Troy City Council members and Interim City Manager Mike Culpepper took turns asking questions for nearly 90 minutes Thursday afternoon. Here are five questions and their answers from Miller.

Q: Mayor Janice Daniels asked: "What trends are emerging in American society that are influencing city management?"

A: “There’s one trend we’re grappling with and that’s how in our society … interacts digitally. Social media, things of that nature. What does that mean for us in getting public input? Internally, we’re working on a parks and recreation plan, and we used to send surveys out… but we have to change ways we get input from our residents. … There seems to be a trend that people don’t go to things as much any more. … They’re more apt to use social media types of things. … It’s like that every generation. People communicate and act digitally. … But at the same time, and you can see people who still come here to pay taxes and drop it off, but other people just do it all digitally. What’s interesting is that you have people at both ends. … You have to embrace technology.”

Q: Councilman Dane Slater asked: "What is your view of the role of city manager in this organization?"

A: “I think there’s a good portion that is leadership. … You provide leadership and direction through strategy… to City Council. … Then you lead your staff and manage your staff. … It should be a positive relationship, and I think that the city manager should provide the best possible services to City Council, the best option sand strategies, the best professional effort they can, but also treat the Council with respect and fairness. You treat everyone equally.”

Q: Councilman Dave Henderson asked: "Give example of a politically sensitive situation in the past year and how you handled it."

A: “Obviously the largest one is the . The way you handle it is … treating every council person equally, providing the same information to everybody and in the end, you have to implement what Council decides. Over the years … every community has difficult times making decisions. It happens. I kind of like to say that part of my passion is I facilitate democracy and help cities build and sustain great communities. That’s my passion and what I want to do.”

Q: Mayor Janice Daniels asked: "Describe how you communicate with council, citizens, staff and the business community."

A: “I communicate many, many different ways. … I don’t think that there’s one way that you’d communicate. Everyone has their own preferred way of interacting with the city manager. Some prefer to zip and email here or there ... some like a phone call, some like to meet. With the community, the city manager and his staff have to communicate in many, many, many different ways. People come here, email… it gets more complex because with the Community Affairs Department, you’re communicating a lot of different information. … Interaction with staff, I believe in having staff meetings regularly, but what I stress is short ones. … I think that in many organizations, they spend too much time in meetings, and thing aren’t getting done. What I think is you should have an agenda and just get through it. … With the public, the city manager has to be out in the community interacting with leaders.”

Q: Councilman Dane Slater asked: "What most interests you about Troy?"

A: “I think what interests me is when I identified that there was a job opening in 2000, I was trying to go to a quality city that has a professional team and trying to move up in that organization. What interests me is one, yes, Troy is a great place with lots of potential, but it allows for me to have a challenge professionally in a good place with a great staff.”

City Manager finalist interview schedule

Five interviews are scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday. The interviews are televised live on the government channel WTRY (Channel 10 for WOW customers and Channel 17 for Comcast customers) and streamed commercial-free on the city's website. Here is the schedule:

Wednesday, August 29

• 9-11 a.m.:  James Creech
• 1-3 p.m.: Vincent Pastue 
• 3:30-5:30 p.m.: John Gabor

Today, August 30

• 9-11 a.m.: Brian Kischnick
• 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m.: Mark Miller
• 3 p.m.: City Council Deliberations followed by Public Comment

More candidate information is available on the City of Troy website. 

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