Council bids farewell to Yoakum’s city manager
Yoakum City Council will be looking for a new manager after parting ways with longtime city manager Kevin Coleman at their Aug. 8 meeting.
The decision followed Tuesday’s closed-door meeting held by City Council, among other items, evaluate the city’s highest paid employee.
New council leadership contributed to Tuesday’s meeting’s events, Yoakum Mayor Carl O’Neill told the newspaper in an interview at City Hall on Thursday. Although Coleman’s leadership had served the city well during his 11 years of City Council to seek contractors for power pole replacement grant work Pictured is Kevin Coleman. service, he said the council felt a new style of manager—someone who’s a good delegator and serves in more of a public relations capacity—might better serve the city’s needs, moving forward.
“We’re looking to go in a different direction, and Kevin Coleman’s style was just not in tune with that direction,” O’Neill said. “He was very much a micro-manager, and he was handling a lot of stuff himself. We felt the position needed to be shifted to let department heads handle more of the operations, giving (the city manager) a little more flexibility.”
Under Coleman's leadership, the city built up some fine budget reserves as well as a great team of department leaders, the mayor said. It is time the city capitalizes on its financial position and lets the department heads do their jobs in running their own departments.
Mayor O’Neill and the council gave Coleman some specific directions as part of their periodic staff evaluations of his office. Three months later, there hadn’t been much progress seen toward those ends, he said.
Colemen recognized the stellar team of departmental leaders who came together under his watch when he responded to the newspaper’s request for comment on Wednesday by email.
“Over the last decade, Yoakum has maintained a high level of trained staff and improved equipment and facilities, all while providing quality service delivery and maintaining the lowest taxes and utility rates of any community its size in the area and likely the state,” Coleman said.
“That success is the result of literally thousands of small discussions, decisions, and tradeoffs our team has made together over a long period of time. While I will not be a part of maintaining that process moving forward, I am pretty proud of the leadership I have provided the city over that period.”
“The city organization is made up of a bunch of committed, but small work teams, doing pretty divergent tasks while being tied together under one umbrella,” Coleman said. “The city manager’s job is to loosely thread those teams together, so they can function both independently and together as needed. I was always committed, and I think, pretty good at doing that. I think the city will miss my efforts.”
“I think the city of Yoakum has gained ground in its ability to meet the challenges it faces,” he added. “I hope the (city’s) leadership remains on a path to progress. By definition, the city manager serves at the discretion of the elected council. The majority of the council saw the need to make a change. I respect that decision and wish them well moving forward.”
The mayor said the city will likely hire an interim director to serve for the next three to six months allowing the council some time as it seeks its candidate.
In addition to some of the attributes already mentioned, O’Neill said, “We would definitely look at somebody that has some grant experience because we have several new grants. Most are about a three-to fiveyear process in getting them through to completion.”
