Profile

Sheryl Sculley is the city manager of San Antonio, Texas.

Phoenix Go-Getter Lifts San Antonio

Phoenix, Arizona, city government is drawing rave reviews in San Antonio.

Former Phoenix Assistant City Manager Sheryl Sculley, now the hard-driving city manager of the Alamo City, has imported Phoenix-style strategies, policies, even some people to help bring change, energy, and civic support to city government there.

Sculley has been the top administrator for more than a year and has earned widespread support for her professionalism and openness. She is respected and popular in a very close-knit, traditional town not always friendly to outsiders. Resentments over her high salary (now $260,000) have withered under a blitzkrieg of well-received accomplishments.

San Antonio Mayor Phil Hardberger described her as “the finest city manager in the United States, the (NBA All Star) Tim Duncan of city managers” in his State of the City address [presented in January 2007], words remarkably similar to the lavish praise Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon showers upon long-time Phoenix City Manager Frank Fairbanks.

Phoenix insiders are not surprised by her early successes or her take-charge style. “Have you ever known Sheryl Sculley not to be running?” observed Don Keuth, president of the downtown economic-development group Phoenix Community Alliance and a longtime Sculley friend and ally. “San Antonio was looking for the aggressive, go-to approach that she has.”

Still, she has shaken San Antonio with a blur of hyperactivity and change, especially for a city that has been described as a “sleepy border town”—by its own mayor. Since taking office in November 2005, she has appointed 44 top executives, reorganized a significant chunk of the city’s top administrative departments, developed the largest bond proposal in city history, prepared and got passed a two-year city budget, and authorized a top-to-bottom makeover of the city’s developmental services department.

During her first week on the job, a crisis blew up when firefighters’ breathing equipment malfunctioned. By the following summer, new air masks had been analyzed, purchased, and delivered. According to her own count, she also delivered 100 speeches and met with more than 600 community groups.

Whew!

Upon closer scrutiny, equally striking is the extent to which Sculley has taken Phoenix-style approaches to her new job.

For several key appointments, Sculley created citizen advisory panels to interview candidates, a strategy borrowed from her years in Phoenix. “This approach has never been done here, and people really liked it,” according to Joe Krier, head of the local chamber of commerce, who interviewed police chief candidates. “When they announced the appointment, and it was one of the candidates that we liked, you get buy-in.”
Similarly, the budget was developed in a more “open and deliberative” way, according to Councilman Richard Perez, from a largely Hispanic southwestern district and an early Sculley supporter. In a move straight from the Phoenix playbook, Sculley initiated a series of budget hearings in the council districts, a “traveling road show” designed to drum up public support. A stupendous success.
When the city started working on a bond issue, Sculley suggested the city form a citizens panel to help assess needs and make recommendations This was a first for San Antonio but a ritual in Phoenix. The citizens, and later the councilmembers, embraced Hardberger and Sculley’s idea of forging a citywide agenda for the bond program.

In the past, councilmembers merely divided the money among themselves and the mayor. But Hardberger, backed by Sculley, convinced the council that San Antonio would be better served by a citywide approach. “It took a lot of convincing, and the city council was giving up a lot, but what we’ve done is historic for San Antonio,” Hardberger says in retrospect.
On occasion, Sculley has recruited Phoenix officials for help. One, Scott White, now heads the convention and visitors bureau. He was the no. 2 person here. Bob Dorfman, former head of the Phoenix Municipal Court, is advising San Antonio on a reorganization of its court system. And Alan Brunacini, longtime Phoenix fire chief, helped her whittle down the finalist list for San Antonio’s new fire chief, a group that includes two prospects from Phoenix.
At Sculley’s behest, the city formed an 18-month management intern program to provide students work experience in city agencies. Phoenix has a similar program that has produced dozens of its current administration.

Sculley’s results-first ambitions made her a respected, even feared, city administrator here, especially popular with the downtown business establishment. Two years ago, when Texas officials began courting her, some major Phoenix movers and shakers put pressure on the council to raise her salary or have her designated as city manager in waiting. Those efforts failed.

The council really has authority to appoint only one administrator: the city manager. And the current council wants to keep Fairbanks on the job several years after he could have retired. The new first-term mayor, considered an outsider to city government, the councilmembers, and the public were all looking to raise the bar.

“We aspire to be a Tier 1 city. We are not there, no, but we want to get there. She has brought a level of professionalism that will help us achieve that,” said Perez, the councilman.

“The city fathers were eager for an action-oriented person and got that in Sheryl Sculley,” offered Richard Gambitta, director of the Institute for Law and Public Affairs at the University of Texas–San Antonio.

Sculley’s attention to detail and her willingness to communicate with councilmembers have resulted in lopsided 8–3, 9–2, and 10–1 council votes, much like the Phoenix city council’s ho-hum unanimity. That may change in the longer term.

Practically every political watcher in southern Texas mentions that San Antonio has the one of the most restrictive term limits of any major American city. The mayor and 10 councilmembers are limited to two, two-year terms.

“For Manager Sculley, it means she has the current council’s support for a short moment in time,” said Char Miller, director of Urban Studies at Trinity University. “Upon this May’s election, she will have to bring up to speed half the council—a process that is replicated every two years.”

Secondly, although Sculley notes that more than half of her staff appointments have been Hispanic, she has yet to name a Mexican-American to a top position in a town that is majority Hispanic. Many will be watching her choice for the new fire chief and her negotiations on collective bargaining agreements with police and fire unions.

Sculley says she misses Arizona’s sunshine, her friends, and the South Mountain Preserve, but she has acclimated well to her new digs. She and her husband, Mike, who got a contract with the county government to push San Antonio’s bids for professional sports, share a condo along the River Walk, just a few blocks from city hall.

Meanwhile, Sheryl Sculley keeps moving at a breakneck pace, running hard and driving even harder. And no one is surprised.

—Richard de Uriarte
Staff Writer
The Arizona Republic
Phoenix, Arizona

Reprinted with permission from the February 18, 2007, issue of The Arizona Republic, Phoenix, Arizona.

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