Assistant City Manager Handoff In Battle Creek

In their first interviews since Battle Creek Assistant City Manager Ted Dearing announced his retirement, he and successor Marcie Gilette talk through the priorities, partnerships, and resident input that will guide what comes next. Ted also reflects on his tenure in Battle Creek.

Episode Resources
City of Battle Creek website

Watch the video of this discussion here or see the episodes on Access Vision in Battle Creek Tuesdays at 6:30 PM on channel 17/917.

The BC City Connection Podcast is produced by Livemic Communications.

Transcript

Welcome And Big Announcements

Richard Piet 0:04

I'm Richard Piet. Welcome back to the BC City Connection. The BC City Connection podcast comes to you from City of Battle Creek, City Hall. Let me just uh tell you or remind you of some of the titles that Ted Dearing has held in Battle Creek. Assistant City Manager, of course, right? Interim City Manager. He was the development manager and general manager of the Serial City Development Corporation. And yes, I'm reading this list. It's not in my head. I have to look at this list. CEO, Battle Creek Area Chamber of Commerce, and an elected official, at-large city commissioner, and mayor of Battle Creek. Marcie Gillette has been with the city of Battle Creek since 1998. And for some of us, that seems like it ought to have been yesterday, but uh that was 28 years ago at the time of this recording. She's been the community services director in Battle Creek since 2015. Why are we talking about all this? Ted Dearing has announced his retirement from the city of Battle Creek, and Marcie has been announced as his successor, assistant city manager. Welcome to you both.

Ted Reflects On City Service

Marcie Gillette 1:24

Thank you.

Richard Piet 1:25

Thank you. Boy, uh Ted, this uh this long stretch of city service in Battle Creek is uh, you know, here's the exit ramp. You're on your way out. What are you thinking after all of this? What stands out?

Ted Dearing 1:43

Yeah. Well, I mean, obviously, I, you know, I'm very grateful for the opportunities I've had to serve the city, both as you pointed out, both as an elected official and as a member of the administrative team. Um, you know, I think we've accomplished a lot over the last, for me, roughly 33 years, uh, which is great. Um, but I again I I've been able to work with so many great teammates over the years that I think on my way out, I, you know, I'm certainly like anybody would be, I'm excited about the the notion and the concept of being retired, but I'm certainly going to miss the team members. And, you know, Marcie's been one of those team members for quite some time now. And I can't think of anybody better suited to take over the role of assistant city manager, but I definitely I'll miss the team, no doubt.

Richard Piet 2:26

Marcie, so this opportunity came around the notion of being the assistant city manager. What crossed your mind in considering that?

Marcie Gillette 2:35

Well, it's a really exciting time here at the city of Battle Creek. Um, we have the onboarding of our city manager uh recently in October, Amanda Zimmerlin, um, who comes to us from Ohio. And that transition for an organization and for a community is huge, right? And so recognizing that I've been in an organization, um, that I have the foundation of understanding of not only its internal operations, but also the community partnerships and the understanding of what our community needs are, I felt like it was a great time to join Amanda's team in that capacity and be able to support and serve in that way.

Richard Piet 3:11

Yeah. What is community services director? What does that mean? And what have you been doing that lends itself to this?

Marcie Gillette 3:19

Yeah. So I would say, Richard, it goes back even a little bit farther than community services. My work with the city when I first started was actually as a neighborhood organizer. And that was right out of undergrad. And that work was really rooted in understanding what community needs. So we're working with resident groups across the community to understand what their assets were, what challenges they were facing, and really helping to broker city services to help create overall community change. So that's kind of the foundation of the work when I first started with the city. More recently, in the role of community services, that department um encompasses four umbrellas of divisions that is code compliance, inspections, community development, and planning and zoning. So I like to call it um community services touches everything as it relates to people and place.

Richard Piet 4:13

Yeah, sounds like it, doesn't it? So, Ted, when what's your in your experience, when you're looking at what's happened recently? We have a new city manager, as Marcie said, a new city attorney also, both of whom came from outside of Battle Creek. How important would you say it is that the assistant city manager has some institutional memory and some uh experience in our city?

Priorities: Housing And Economic Growth

Ted Dearing 4:41

Yeah, and as you point out, you know, given some of the changes in key leadership positions here in the city, I think it's almost critical that uh somebody with Marcie's uh institutional knowledge and very industry-specific skills uh slots into this role. Because um, you know, I think Amanda Zimmerlin's gonna do an outstanding job for the city of Battle Creek, but she would acknowledge that she's new to the community and still learning. And, you know, Marcie as a resource to her. Again, somebody with a tenure as long as hers with the city of Battle Creek is gonna help her a lot. Because I've seen just in my relatively short time with Amanda that that having some historic knowledge of the city and knowing something about various projects over the years is pretty critical to the conversation. And Marcie will be able to pick it, you know, pick it up right where I left it off.

Richard Piet 5:25

And what does that mean, Marcie, in your mind? Um what are the priorities right now, would you say?

Wins: Downtown And Small Business

Marcie Gillette 5:32

Sure. We have a lot of really big initiatives that are happening in our community. We have certainly everything that relates to housing, you know. Um, our our community's core of health is making sure that we have housing for anyone in our community who wants to live here. That's one of the things that's great about Battle Creek, is that we have an opportunity to have residents either stay here or move here. There's a place for everyone. So housing is a super key initi initiative that we have. That's we have a lot of community partnerships that are happening because not just the city alone can create change as it relates to that. From an economic development standpoint, um, we have some strategic plans that we've more recently worked through community processes together from an economic development standpoint, building uh our businesses and our just economic base to make sure that we're a thriving community. Our partnerships that we continue to build for all of the aspects of work that maybe city government isn't responsible for in isolation, but maybe touches in some way. So, how do we partner in that work so that we can leverage those resources, recognizing that city doesn't have an independent role in that work?

Richard Piet 6:49

Ted, I I'm wondering as you look back, are there certain things that you were involved in that that you're particularly proud of?

Ted Dearing 6:58

Yeah. You know, again, I mentioned I had a lot of great teammates, so I wouldn't suggest that any of these accomplishments were mine or mine alone. But certainly when I do reflect back, I think about some things like uh, you know, certainly some key downtown revitalization projects, uh particularly the Milton and then now the hotel. You know, I think about I spent the last probably five years working hard on updating the development and TIFF plans for both the DDA uh and the LDDA, including the district study for the Beckley Road Corridor. And I think now we're in a really good position to start to implement that plan, which I think could make a big difference for that part of the city. Um I would say that I'm particularly proud of the work that we've done around small business development, um, our small business development team. I think with the work of that team and some other entrepreneurial support organizations in our community, I think we have one of the best, if not the best, uh small business support systems uh in the region. And we do a lot of work, you know, on grassroots entrepreneurialism. And we've launched a lot of small businesses over the last few years and then supplemented that with some uh some great activity around events and activities in the downtown, too. So I'm, you know, I'm proud of what we accomplished. I think there's always more work to do, but hopefully we're a little bit better off than when we started.

Richard Piet 8:15

Is there anything that you look at and you say, Man, you know, I wish we could have finished this or that uh as you uh leave and say, Well, uh, I'm turning it over.

Ted Dearing 8:27

Yeah. Yeah. The the the the big one I'm gonna turn over is river restoration, right? Um, again, talk about spending the last two or three or four, five years working diligently on a project. I think we've made more progress in the last few years, right, than we did in the last 25 years. So I think that project is a reality. It's gonna take some time, but some others are gonna have to do the heavy lifting at this point. I think I got it as far as I can. I'm sorry I won't be able to stick around and see it naturalized, but uh, I have great faith in those who are coming after me to make sure the project gets done.

Richard Piet 8:59

What do you think, Marcie? This is uh one of your uh uh tasks that you'll look after, right?

Marcie Gillette 9:05

Absolutely. And the magnitude of this project, the reality is we're talking uh a number of years, right? So this is this is not just taking um a ball that Ted has carried for a handful of years and then just sort of nudging it over the finish line. This is this is a big lift that again takes more than just the city of Battle Creek to do that. We have a number of different partners that are working on this initiative. We have a lot of um financial management that we need to figure out what those pieces and components look like in order to get it to the point where Ted can see the naturalization of that. Uh, we'll make sure that you're at the opening, Ted.

Richard Piet 9:46

Well, uh that also uh makes me wonder when you look at this new role, having considered what community services has been like, and and maybe in your role in community services, you've thought, well, you know, it might be cool if we could do this or that. Now you might have some more influence over advancing something you had an idea about. What's cooking in that uh part of your thinking?

How Goals Become City Action

Marcie Gillette 10:14

Yeah. I think that certainly the core of the work is really rooted in our organizational goals, right? That our city commission establishes and understanding what their vision is for our community, and then helping to leverage um our service delivery in a way that gets us there. So while I may have ideas on approaches to accomplish that, um, that I will be contributing, the the vision and the goals are really established and led by our city commission and our city manager.

Richard Piet 10:45

How does that communication process happen? Walk us through that. And Ted probably has some thoughts on this too. Uh when when the commission is on the street hearing responses, the city managers involved in carrying out whatever the that means for operations. You all have been part of that too. Walk us through the process of how that works.

Marcie Gillette 11:11

Ted, do you want to take a stab at that first?

How Residents Can Get Involved

Ted Dearing 11:14

Yeah, you know, I again that the commission's really at the point, and I think that this is something that's gonna happen uh probably over the next few months. And Marcie obviously will be an integral part of these conversations uh of establishing and setting new goals uh with the new city manager. There's an opportunity there to revisit where we are as a community uh in terms of what we think the role of government is, and I think that's gonna happen over the over the next several months. And then staff, and you know, and again, Marcie will be a key player of this, you know, has to translate what they hear into action, you know, kind of on the street, as they say. And um, you know, I think that process has has certainly worked well over the years. The commission's been able to provide some clear directives on where they want to see the community go. And we've been able to execute projects to support that. Uh, and I expect that that that'll happen here. I think I think this next round of uh of analysis uh will um you know really set the tone or or drive the agenda for the city over the next five, 10 years. Yeah.

Richard Piet 12:14

Marcie, you uh uh might imagine folks that are listening to this and uh they're residents, maybe they've been residents for a long time. How can they help you uh carry out whatever it is that will be decided, you and the team?

Marcie Gillette 12:31

We have a lot of ways in which we solicit resident engagement. Uh we have, you know, very public um surveys that we do as an organization, but we also have a variety of different um input opportunities as it relates to department level and things that are happening. So, more recently, for example, we've been working on a housing strategy to be added to our master planning process. And we've had a number of different community sessions that have been very well attended. So being able to have residents be engaged, to have their voices lifted up, to understand what their needs and their desires are to see for our own community helps us to understand where that aligns with our organizational vision and goals so that we can put strategies and service delivery in place to help get us there. So certainly I would encourage residents to continue to participate, whether it's, you know, online surveys or engagement, public engagement sessions, participating in our city commission meetings and providing input and public dialogue sessions. Um, we have resident engagement opportunities where we have established neighborhood planning councils that meet monthly by geography, where residents can really talk about neighborhood issues that feel really important to them. So just encouraging people to stay engaged and understand what services we're providing so that we can we can adapt and change based on our community's needs.

Richard Piet 14:03

Well, Ted, uh, are we going to uh stop in at Horox some lunchtime and you'll be sitting there reading a book, sipping on something hot maybe, and uh taking everything in. Uh what's next for Ted Deeren? Yeah, who who can say with any certainty, right?

Ted Dearing 14:21

It's I'm kind of uh I I mean, I recognize I've learned this, right, over the last uh, say, three or four months or so, that there's a certain psychology to retirement that involves, you know, finding ways to occupy yourself. I guess the good news is I uh I've always felt like I'm I'm pretty good at entertaining myself. And I suspect there'll be a wide variety of interests that I will want to pursue. But it will be nice to have the time, for example, to sit down at Horox and maybe have something nice to eat.

Richard Piet 14:48

Yeah, that's right. Maybe we'll uh, I don't know, turn the corner at uproot, and there you'll be. And uh we look forward to that. Well, thanks to you both for your years of service in Battle Creek. And Marcie, I'm sure we will visit with you again right here on this podcast.

Marcie Gillette 15:08

Thank you so much, Richard, for having Ted and I on today. We appreciate that.

Where To Subscribe And Watch

Richard Piet 15:12

Thank you. Thanks to you both. Good luck, Ted, and thank you, Ted Dearing and Marcie Gillette here on the BC City Connection. This podcast is available to be subscribed to. Just look for it where you get podcasts. It's on YouTube, the City of Battle Creek's YouTube channel. And maybe you're watching us on Access Vision. Thanks for that too. Take care.