City manager receives high marks for performance

The Maricopa City Council recently completed their performance evaluation of City Manager Kevin Evans, citing his performance as exceeding expectations.

The evaluation divided Evans’s performance into six categories, each of which had multiple sub-categories.

The areas the city manager scored lowest in were time management, organizing and planning, liaisons, inter-department/inter-agency contact, verbal communication and zoning code revisions. In each of these areas, Evans scored a 6, which is defined as “work being complete and satisfactory.” The scale for the evaluation was 1 to 10.

Reasons for the lower marks in those areas, according to the evaluator, Mayor Anthony Smith, were as follows;

Organizing and planning: “Kevin effectively delegates projects to various city staff. Kevin needs to continue timely follow through of organizational planning issues. The planning and development of city buildings has not gone as quickly as council would like. Council believes that it may be more insightful and create better evaluation processes if the city directors prepared annual evaluations of Kevin prior to council’s evaluation.”

Time management: “Council priorities take too long to be accomplished. For example, the youth coordinator position should have been filled a while ago. This was delayed because management was not on the same page concerning what council desired. The north Santa Cruz Wash solution should have been commenced.”

Zoning code revisions: “Council budgeted for a full zoning code re-write. Council approved the hiring of an attorney to assist with the re-write of the zoning code. Council understands that the employee who was responsible for this re-write has left the city. However, council has not been updated concerning this project. Council believes this needs to be done so the city continues to grow.”

Inter-department/agency contact: “Council and Kevin should discuss what agencies and organizations the city should belong to and what role the city should have in those agencies and organizations. Council and Kevin will establish these in the performance benchmark process.”

Liaisons: “Kevin should be the ‘face of city hall’ and should make himself accessible to the general public. Council believes it would be beneficial for him to do the city manager’s reports himself at city council meetings so people can get to know him better. Council wants Kevin to take a more active role in city activities, and council would like him to attend a service organization on a regular basis.”

“Council wants to make sure Kevin communicates clearly and often with them. Kevin needs to make sure that council is not surprised by something happening in the city or the community. If there is a significant event, Kevin, or his designee, should call each council member to let him or her know what is going on and answer any questions that they might have.”

Verbal communication: “While Kevin is effective in verbal communication, he needs to be more approachable to the community. He communicates vision effectively to the staff. Kevin, however, needs to stay focused on the primary topic of the conversation.”

In addition to these areas, Evans also received scores of 9 in the areas of budgeting and economic development. His average score for the entire review was a 7.

The city manager’s contract is set to expire in January of next year, and the council is currently working on benchmark goals for the position.
 

City Manager Kevin Evans talks about Maricopa, its challenges and what the future holds in an exclusive Q&A this Monday online at InMaricopa.com.

FIle photo