New guy at the top

On the corner of Mark Orme’s desk at City Hall, closest to a window overlooking the City Council chambers, sits a happy face coffee mug, the iconic yellow one with black eyes and grin. It’s a fitting cup for a guy who, to borrow a line from the musical Annie, is never fully dressed without a smile.

That was true when he relocated to Chico about a year and a half ago, coming aboard first as assistant city manager. And it’s true today, not quite five months into his new job as the top city administrator, following Brian Nakamura’s lightning-speed departure from that role at one of the lowest points in the city’s history.

So, who is City Manager Mark Orme? Who is the man charged with bringing the city back to fiscal solvency?

For starters, he’s a young guy, and the first Gen-Xer to lead the city. But because of his boyish looks, including that nearly ever-present smile, he could pass for younger than 42. Orme is a man of faith and a husband and father. He and his wife, Jennifer, a former teacher, are rearing two children, a boy and a girl, ages 6 and 9, respectively. They, after his faith, are his priority, followed by his health and then work.

Orme grew up in the high desert, just outside of Palm Springs. He was an all-American kid, a Cub Scout, a high school homecoming king, an ambitious student who dreamt of becoming the president of the United States. He earned an undergraduate degree in political science from UC Riverside and then an MBA from the University of Redlands, and subsequently dabbled in the political realm, including serving as a Congressional aide to Republican Sonny Bono.

His experience in Washington, D.C., was an eye-opener, and just the right amount of government exposure to make him realize he’d rather implement policy than make it. He found he could accomplish more at the local level, so he set his sights on climbing the ladder of a county or municipal organization. He wound up on the lower end of the administrative hierarchy as a management assistant in Hemet, a city of about 82,000 in Riverside County. There, over the course of 14 years, he rose through the ranks, working for seven city managers, including Nakamura, under whom he served as assistant city manager.

He ended up here for many of the same reasons a lot of residents have made Chico our adopted hometown. He fell in love with the place. Nakamura had enticed Orme by encouraging him to simply visit the area. A walk downtown, through the campus and Bidwell Park helped seal the deal. “Chico had everything I desired to raise my family in,” he said. They had no ties to this region.

Orme said he truly had no idea he’d wind up Chico’s city manager when he picked up his life and moved north. He had no clue he’d be the point man in implementing a plan to bring the city back from the brink of economic failure—he estimates Chico was a year away from having to file for bankruptcy. He’s now charged with rebuilding the fractured organization, and somehow he manages to keep on smiling. The CN&R sat down with Orme last week to ask him about the state of the city, the challenges that lie ahead, and some other topical things, like marijuana and the new conservative City Council.

CN&R: Did you have any inkling when you accepted the assistant city manager job that you’d be city manager in a short time?

Orme: The interesting thing about that is that when Brian [Nakamura] came to Chico he was über excited. … From what he told me, he truly thought he’d be here for the rest of his career as a city manager. Lo and behold that didn’t hold true—best of intentions. But, yeah, I had no idea. Eventually, after he retired, I figured I may have that opportunity. One of the things I promised to my family was that I would not accept a city manager position, regardless of what was being offered, until I was at least in my 40s. I wasn’t going to put my family through the difficult tasks that you have as city manager when I had such young kids. Now my kids are still young, but not at the age they once were, so I feel a little more confident in the fact that, at the age I am, this is exactly what’s been designed for me and so I’m going to facilitate that need.

What’s been the most difficult transition in your new role?

Ensuring that I have the support beneath me to get the job done. The organization had some real skills set up in a way where we were functioning very efficiently, and when you lose the manager, and I become the manager, I need to make sure the pieces get moved into the appropriate slot to ensure that we can operate in the most effective way possible. I feel that over the past couple months as I’ve brought Chris Constantin up to assistant city manager and Frank Fields up to administrative-services director, things are clicking now.

Tell me about your working relationship with Assistant City Manager Chris Constantin.

He cares so much about doing things not only well, but also in the right way. He set up the administrative services department up so well that if I can have that same focus on the entire organization from his analytic mindset we’ve got a lot of successes yet to come.

Where are you in getting the staff to be able to meet the needs of the city?

I’m rebuilding the city from an operational perspective. We’re evaluating process, we’re evaluating services to the best of our ability, and then that third component is individuals. And that component is continual as well as the service-delivery and the process. There is no perfect time constraint you fit that within—it’s a continual and ongoing accountability measure you put in place between yourself and all of your direct reports. And then you hold them accountable for ensuring that that same level of accountability is put into place between them and their subordinates and so on and so forth. So, that’s going to continue—there is no end date on that. … We have a lot of talent here, and we need to continue to move the organization forward, and that’s a mighty thing to do with everything the city’s been through.

Was that level of accountability missing in previous years?

I don’t know. I think that different managers manage differently, so I don’t know how things were done in the past. The only manager I know how he managed was Brian because I worked with him. I do know that we’ve added a lot of checks and balances within the organization. We’ve added a lot of accountability measures with the fiscal policies we’ve put into place. We’re continuing to implement best practices as it relates to personnel, as it relates to process, as it relates to every service that we offer to the community. … I’ve challenged every one of the city staff in my quarterly meetings with them—I’ve had two so far—to find efficiencies, find cost-cutting measures that could possibly be put into place. You see the inbox downstairs; that is for the public to also give us recommendations and thoughts in areas where they may see inefficiencies. I want to take all of those and evaluate them, and if they’re reasonable and doable, let’s do it.

How has the level of transparency changed?

There’s been a vast change in transparency in the organization. I think it was forced upon the organization, candidly, because I think there was a thought that all of the information wasn’t being put out over the years. One of the things that we’ve done … is that we’ve put up all of the salaries and benefits on our website. And we continue to bring back to council, and definitely on the website, all of the budget-monitoring reports on a monthly basis.

You said there was a thought that the information wasn’t there. So, was the information there or wasn’t it?

I wasn’t here. I don’t know. And I’m not going to go on a witch hunt. I’m not going to go back and try to figure out who did what and whodunnit. I play those games with my kids on boards, and I’m not going to do it here because we have to move this organization forward and we have to provide services at a high level to the community. So if I’m busy looking at the past and trying to uncover what happened, I’m not doing my due diligence in what needs to happen for the future of this organization.

There was a lot of mistrust with Brian Nakamura. What have you done to rebuild relationships at City Hall?

I look at this as threefold. … It’s not only a matter of me rebuilding trust with staff. I have to rebuild trust—this organization has to rebuild trust—on three levels. One of those levels is with the public. The public truly believes that they’ve been snookered. When you’re facing a $15 million deficit, something went wrong. So we need as an organization to rebuild trust to satisfy that level of trust with the community. Secondarily, you have this component of this organization that also needs to rebuild trust; that second component is between staff and the City Council. The City Council believes they weren’t given the information as well that they should have been to make good policy decisions. I think that there’s been a lot of trust that’s been swept away between this office and the City Council as well. So as I’m trying rebuild trust with the community, I’m also trying to rebuild trust with the City Council members. Then you’ve got this third component: The only way to rebuild trust with the community and rebuild trust with the council is to ensure the staff is doing the service delivery that we are responsible to deliver. So, because of everything that occurred, because of the loss of jobs, and because of all of the reductions in the labor agreements, and all the cutbacks we’ve had to go through, there’s been a lot lost trust between this office and the entire organization in every department. That part of trust-building is difficult to achieve. Because, really, what these employees want—and what anybody in any job wants—is they want [job] surety. … That is tough when you have to balance the budget on such a razor’s edge to give those assurances to the organization. However, that aside, we’re rebuilding trust by communicating more. I’m having regular meetings. I do regular email updates to the city staff. I’m keeping them in the know of what’s actually happening with the organization as we progress and move forward. I’m trying to encourage them to the best of my ability. I’m trying to encourage them to put the past in the past and look at where our goals and objectives are going to lead us to in the future. … There’s no way anyone can re-instill that level of trust within a month, within six months, a year, within two years. … It’s going take time for this organization and I’m willing to take the time to get it done, because there are a ton many talented people here, a ton of people who have dedicated their lives to serving the public.

How difficult is it for laypeople, including elected leaders, to understand municipal finance?

It’s tough. You really have to have staff who can explain it in a way that anybody off the street can understand, and that’s difficult with the type of accounting that municipal governments have. And we’re not alone. The city of Chico is not alone in trying to figure out the best way of explaining how these funds interwork. There are a lot of cities that have tried to come up with creative ways of designing pictures, or whatever, to depict how it all exactly flows and functions.

How do you view the relationship between the city and the university?

I see that that relationship wasn’t as strong as it could have been when I first came in. I see that relationship becoming stronger. As the year’s gone by, I’ve seen a lot of open dialogue and honest dialogue between both the university and the city and I will tell you that that relationship in itself is interdependent. So that interdependency is such that there has to be a good relationship. … And I think both of us know that—both from the university’s perspective and the city’s perspective. … I’m dedicated to ensuring that it’s a professional relationship where collaboration is at the forefront of what we’re doing, to look for opportunities to work together, rather than trying to find the issues where we are apart.

What are your thoughts on the city potentially receiving additional help from university police in downtown?

I think that the [Chico] police chief is doing what he’s supposed to do—and that’s look for opportunity. Is there an opportunity to spark a collaborative effort between the university and the PD here? We don’t know the answer to that. The only way to find out the answer to that is by sitting down and dialoguing over it. That door has now been opened and we’ll be having some dialogue with that regard. Where it takes us, I don’t know. I know the university’s primary objective is to ensure the education of their students, and as a part of that education there’s also a component of safety—to ensure that the students are safe. So I know it’s important to the campus to ensure that safety is one of the priorities that they have, and they know that our top priority is public safety.

Will Bidwell Park’s hours ever return to pre-recession levels?

It’s our goal to get it back to some semblance of usability for the public. It’s definitely a goal I have from an operational perspective. However, that all acts in concert with the budget. So, as the budget improves, the council will be able to make that determination to allow me to do that. … Although all of us want it, it depends upon our ability to pay for it. Because one thing I’ve seen some people do is jump at the opportunity to fix things without the financials to back it up … and then it falls on its face.

A few years ago, the council considered land-use policies related to marijuana dispensaries. Considering other cities are raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales tax revenues from those types of sales, should the city consider moving forward on such policy?

I know that there are priorities right now that we’re focused on, and I’m not sure marijuana dispensaries are a priority right now because of the circumstances we find ourselves in financially. Realizing that could be a potential revenue source, I have not had that discussion with any of the policy makers. So, in my opinion, it’s not high on the priority list right now. As soon as they tell me it’s something they’d like us to investigate and to bring back some recommendations, I’d be happy to do so.

Who’s your personal hero?

There are a lot of men of faith I look up to. One is my friend John McKelvey. He’s a teacher at one of the high schools down in Southern California. He’s the epitome of courtesy, of kindness, of love and compassion. And he’s the epitome of a father, of a husband. And that is the kind of hero I look up to; how can I be a better man, how can I be a better father, how can I be a better husband, how can I do great community service in the job I’ve been given the talents to do?

Here’s a Hemet question. Would rock gardens help solve the water crisis?

[Laughs] When I started working for Hemet, the average age was in the 60s. … A lot of the mobile home estates are large mobile home complexes—seniors only—65 or 55 and older. Would it solve the water problem? It’s a great question, and maybe there’s some research I need to conduct. [Laughs]

Now back to the serious stuff. At a recent press conference outlining a plan for police patrols in downtown, the vice president of the Chico Police Officers’ Association told the city the plan wasn’t feasible. How do you move forward from that type of opposition?

The police officers’ association understands the complexities of their work better than anyone else. They understand the constraints that the department is under better than anyone else. However, I believe that they also understand the responsibility and obligation to this community to ensure that the services that are desired are being implemented. … The police department is filled with wonderful professionals who are doing their jobs excellently. The CPOA, from the union perspective, has the responsibility to express concern for the entity of the police officers’ association. When I look at the CPOA, I get why they voice concern. When I talk to officers, I get the feeling that they get it—they know what their responsibilities are, what their obligation is, and they’re going to do what’s necessary to get the job done. But to differentiate the two and take them apart—the CPOA versus the individual officers—that’s where I get my sense of peace.

What’s the city’s biggest challenge in reining in spending?

It’s a matter of balancing the checkbook. You can only spend what you bring in. And in addition to that, you have to pay down your debt. We have a huge hole: $7.8 million, and we’ll be paying at least $800,000 of that this fiscal year. But in addition to that, we have no reserve. So, reining in spending, we have to ensure our deficit situation is turned around and we also have to ensure that we start rebuilding a reserve. Then, we can look at what spending looks like into the future, because right now we are baseline. We’ve reduced so much from a spending perspective.

According to public data, in 2012 Chico ranked 25th out of 482 incorporated California cities and counties for highest-paid employees. How do you keep that level of compensation from overburdening the coffers?

Every municipal agency is dealing with that exact circumstance of how do you ensure that you’re paying a fair wage within the budget you have? That’s a challenge, obviously. It’s a matter of working with employee groups, working with your executive team. It’s a matter of continuing to emphasize the importance of looking at how we can curb the continuing increase in expense that a government employee is. Last year, in labor negotiations, we achieved a $4 million reduction in contract costs. That doesn’t hinder the costs behind the scenes, though, of PERS increases that the city pays. Albeit we’re cutting and reducing and the employees are feeling the hit of that, there’s this cost behind the scenes that continues to increase. So we’re looking for creative ways on how to achieve those cost savings in positions.

Are the salaries sustainable?

I think that you’re seeing it’s not sustainable for some organizations. You’re seeing [the bankruptcies in] Stockton, you’re seeing San Bernadino, you’re seeing Detroit, you’re seeing Vallejo. I think that they are kind of that poster child of getting in way too over your head, and we’re going ensure that Chico doesn’t get there. I know that this organization is going to continue looking for whatever might make the most sense for all parties involved to ensure that we’re a sustainable organization into the future. I don’t know what that looks like yet. We’re looking for what opportunities exist to help deal with that because it’s a real concern for Chico and the rest of the municipalities in the state.

So, do you think that Chico can sustain these employee contracts and somehow bring back the services the citizens have seen over the years?

[Pause] I’m very hopeful. We will find out. There’s a lot of work that has to be done to come up with what level of services this community desires and what it can afford. That will have to be panned out at the dais as the City Council makes a determination of what we can afford to deliver within the dollar amounts we are constrained by.

How close was the city to bankruptcy in 2013 when you arrived?

We were within a year of bankruptcy, and that cannot be taken lightly. That was a stark reality.

What are you doing now to brace for the recession predicted for 2017-18.

Spending within our means; not promising things that we know aren’t feasible or reasonable. I think we have an excellent staff that’s able to look at the budget moving forward, and look at what is a reasonable amount coming in from a sales tax perspective over time. And having that data will help the City Council to make the determination on what the right course of action is in relation to the future provisions within the [employee contracts]. Every city is facing that same dilemma of—we had the Great Recession, we can expect to have other recessions, maybe not as deep as that one because that was the housing bubble—how can we ensure that we are fortified from that type of hit that the city took?

What’s the good news?

We’re seeing increases in revenue. We’re seeing sales tax turn around. We’re seeing morale start to turn around a bit. I would say that Chico has a bright future, and that’s the best news of all. Even with all the challenges we’ve talked about, I would say that the hope that is within the numbers that are coming through—from sales tax to the development patterns we’re seeing—should put a smile on everybody’s face in Chico.

Conservatives will hold the majority on the City Council beginning next month. Will the new council be more in line with your personal philosophies?

My philosophies don’t really matter. I’d say I’ve worked under conservative councils in the past and under a progressive/liberal council here, and I would say that all I care about is ensuring that their directive is put into operation and that we’re able to create an operation that reflects what their policy directive is. That’s all my job is.

The fact that you make more money than Gov. Jerry Brown was a talking point during election season. What do you think about that criticism?

It is something that will never go away. It’s something that’s going to be constant in any executive-level position … from corporations all the way down to government. I get that—I understand where the concern comes from—because it’s a lot of money. However, the task that we’ve been given here in this organization is worth well more than that salary pays for, because this community is worth a heck of a lot more than that. When you get the right people and you’re willing to pay them what you think they’re worth, then we’ll go get the job done. And if there’s ever a decision that the City Council doesn’t think I’m worth that, that any city manager is worth that, then they will let us know, and they will take us out the door the next day. … I feel that people will have this argument for years to come, and that’s OK. I’ll continue to do the job I’m paid to do and I’m looking forward to turning this organization around and not worrying about that concern.