Development, teamwork keys for city administrator candidates

LEWISTON — Leadership, team-building and an eye toward economic development: all things candidates for the city administrator job say they'd bring to the city if they are hired.

Councilors are considering four finalists, one of whom will replace Jim Bennett, who was ousted in July. The City Council has scheduled a meeting with at least two candidates on Nov. 18.

All four have years of experience in Maine municipal government.

Acting City Administrator Phil Nadeau has been part of Lewiston's top management team since 1999 and served three times as acting administrator, from April to November 2000, from November 2001 to March 2002 and from July this year to now.

Bangor City Manager Ed Barrett has been in his post since 1988. He has seen the city transform from a timber-based economy to something more diverse.

Jeffrey Kobrock spent nine years as Gardiner's city manager, wrapping up his tenure in May 2009. Before that, he worked as the economic development director in Gardiner; and from 1995 through 1997, in Bucksport.

Doug Harris still considers Maine home, even though he left the state in 2006. He spent the previous 27 years as the Falmouth city manager.

"We have very strong candidates, and I think what the council and the hiring committee saw in them was experience and a background in public administration," said Human Resources Director Denis Jean. Experience in Maine was less important than government experience overall, he said. It just worked out that each has spent years leading Maine communities.

None is closer to home than Phil Nadeau, who is applying for the job he's performed temporarily two other times.

A Lewiston native, Nadeau has owned property in Lewiston as a landlord, even as he served as a volunteer member of the city's Finance Committee, from 1989 through 1994, when he took a job as the town manager of Richmond. He came back to Lewiston in 1999, where he served as assistant to three city administrators: Bob Mulready, Bogdan Vitas and Jim Bennett.

"I'm just doing the job now," Nadeau said. "It's what I've done all along, and I hope I can continue doing it permanently."

Nadeau has impressive credentials: degrees in public administration and public policy and management. He's also served as an adjunct professor of public service for the Muskie School at the University of Southern Maine and at the University of Maine at Augusta.

Bangor's Barrett has been involved in Maine local government since 1988, when he left Wichita Falls, Texas, to take the Bangor manager's job. He has degrees in political science, but the bulk of his resume is devoted to his two decades in Bangor, a city similar in size and landscape to Lewiston.

"If you look at the demographics in Lewiston, what you're trying to do down there, those are things I've been involved with up in Bangor," Barrett said. Chief among those is resurrecting a city's downtown.

"We had empty storefronts that we wanted to reinvent, and bring back to life," he said. "We did that, making it a more vibrant place, with attractions and more residential development so that it has more of a neighborhood feeling."

Former Gardiner manager Kobrock said economics is also one of his specialities.

"I think that's going to prove to be one of the main goals of the Lewiston community," he said. Another is building teams, within City Hall and around the community.

"Municipal managers are there to solve all sorts of problems and they need to be aware of what's best for the community," he said. "They do that by building teams and leading. But they don't make policy — that's the elected leaders' role."

Former Falmouth manager Harris said he's looking forward to returning to Maine, after three years of working for his father's venture capital business in Kansas.

"Maine is home," Harris said. "It's where my son and daughter grew up, and we're looking forward to coming back."

Harris' resume points to his work cutting spending in Falmouth, planning for growth and cleaning the town's image along Route 1.

"Lewiston is a much more diverse community than Falmouth was, and that makes it interesting for me," he said. "When I was there, we experienced rapid growth, one of the fastest growing towns in the state. That led to some tensions, but I think that happens in every community. And it's the manager's job to deal with it."

staylor@sunjournal.com