Mount Vernon City Manager Chris Nosbisch is looking toward the future of the growing community. Between plans to revitalize the downtown, possibly building a new pool, renovating a former church into a new police station and purchasing new land for a public works site, Nosbisch said his goal is to “leave the community in a better position than when I got there.”
Of Iowa’s 940 cities, about 200 have city managers or administrators. In many cases, these managers are the highest-paid, or among the highest-paid, city employees. But what do they do and how do they run a city? Here’s a look at a day in the life of several Iowa city managers and how they balance everything from disaster response to patching potholes.
Mayor John Haila proposed the idea at the Ames City Council meeting Oct. 25 as a surprise to Steven L. Schainker, who has been with the city for 43 years.