Austin Mayor Releases Names Of City Manager Job Finalists

AUSTIN, TX — Mayor Steve Adler on Monday released a list of applicants vying to become the next Austin city manager.

The mayor put the list on the city's message board after some pressure to release the names of finalists hoping to fill the vacant slot. The Austin American-Statesman newspaper previously took the unusual step of suing the city for release of the finalists for the city manager's slot left vacant after the departure of Marc Ott, who took a job in Washington, D.C. in October 2016.

City officials had hoped to conduct the interviews in private without releasing the list of candidates until the selection process was concluded.

The finalists for the empty slot are:

• Denise Turner Roth
• Scott Kubly
• Cecil House
• Howard Lazarus
• Maura Black Sullivan
• Spencer Cronk

Related story: Austin American-Statesman Sues City Over Information Request

The Statesman secured aspects of the candidates' work narrative in shedding light on the finalists' backgrounds and breadth of professional experience:

• Interim City Manager Elaine Hart was not included in the list of finalists, despite wide speculation she would throw her hat in the ring as well. The city's employee union had previously endorsed her for the job. The Statesman noted a progressive vibe as a common thread in the finalists' panel. Some come with political baggage, the newspaper noted.
• Denise Turner Roth, a former administration official under President Barack Obama at the helm of the General Services Administration (GSA), which is an independent agency of the U.S. government established in 1949 to help manage and support the basic functioning of federal agencies. Roth was the subject of some criticism for not compelling Donald Trump to divest himself from a lease of the old Washington Post Office for Trump International Hotel, according to reports. A clause in the lease stated that no elected official could be a party to the lease, and Roth’s position drew stern rebuke from the New York Times Editorial Board. After leaving the GSA in January, Roth was named senior adviser for WSP, a global engineering and construction management consulting firm involved in various large government construction contracts, including One World Trade Center. She formerly served as acting city manager of Greensboro, N.C.
• Scott Kubly has served as director of the Seattle Department of Transportation since 2014. Before that, he was deputy director of Chicago's transportation department. He's also dabbled in the transportation department for Washington, D.C. Kubly, too, is a controversial figure. The Statesman noted Kubly was the focus on an investigation over ethics violations in Seattle after failing to recuse himself on work matters related to his former ownership of a bike-sharing company that operated the city's bike-share program. The Seattle Times reported that Kubly admitted to a pair of ethics violations, drawing a penalty of $10,000.
• Cecil House operates a housing construction practice for New York’s Gilbane Building Co., the Statesman reported. Before that, he was general manager of the New York Housing Authority, the country’s largest public housing authority. House was hired at the housing authority in 2012. He submitted his resignation in 2015 shortly after the Daily News reported on mismanagement and repair backlogs and the presence of piles of unused supplies the housing authority was selling off at a loss. On Sunday, the Daily News also reported the housing authority failed to conduct lead paint inspections across thousands of public housing units.
• Maura Black Sullivan works as city manager in Chattanooga, Tenn., after in planning and development for Memphis. She also worked as a family court mediator in Shelby County, according to a résumé she submitted to the city of Dallas last year, the Statesman found. She was also a finalist for the city manager job there, the newspaper reported.
• Howard Lazarus is the one finalist to have worked in Austin, serving eight years as the public works director. He departed last year to become city administrator of Ann Arbor, Mich. and formerly served as engineering director in Newark, N.J. Lazarus served in the military, after graduating from West Point, according to the Ann Arbor News.
• Spencer Cronk has been city administrator of Minneapolis since 2014. A native of Minnesota, Cronk previously worked for the city of New York, and later as a commissioner in Minnesota’s Department of Administration.

>>> Read the full story at Austin American Statesman

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