Sioux City Council Interview with City Manager Candidate Eric Swanson - July 24, 2025
STREAMING COPY IN PREPARATION — RECORDING AVAILABLE FROM THE ORIGINAL SOURCE
Sioux City Council Interview with City Manager Candidate Eric Swanson - July 24, 2025
The Sioux City City Council conducted a formal interview with Eric Swanson, a finalist for the position of city manager, on July 24, 2025. The interview lasted approximately one and a half hours and included opening remarks by Swanson, questions from council members, and a segment of questions submitted by the public and read by the recruitment consultant. No formal decision was made during the meeting.
Public Comments & Testimony
- A series of questions submitted online by members of the public were read by Mark Peterson of MGT (the recruiting consultant). Topics included Swanson's genuine interest in the job, weed control on city property, methods for addressing homelessness, balancing economic development with city character, tax credits and corporate welfare, willingness to accept a pay cut, working with a council that might want to eliminate the city manager department, stimulating diverse populations, partnering with school districts, improving transparency, capital improvement planning, community visibility, historic preservation, community engagement, and home rule. Swanson responded to each, often emphasizing collaboration, communication, and his experience in other cities.
Discussion Items
- Opening Remarks: Eric Swanson expressed humility and a lifelong connection to the Sioux City area. He highlighted his background as a 19-year-old airman and crash firefighter in the 185th, attending the University of South Dakota, and his 38-year marriage. He noted his desire to serve as city manager after observing the city's investments.
- Attraction to the Position: Swanson stated that the best days for Sioux City are ahead and that he brings experience in economic development, grant writing, and infrastructure. He cited his work in Medford (population 85,000) and his current role in a community of 5,000 recovering from a wildfire.
- Managing a Larger City: Swanson acknowledged Sioux City is larger than his current community but emphasized that leadership skills (teamwork, collaboration, state/federal funding) are transferable. He highlighted his experience in Medford, Roseburg (25,000), and Yankton (20,000 trade area).
- First 90 Days: Swanson said he would focus on meeting community stakeholders, city staff, understanding finances, and building relationships. He pre-emptively asked the council about their expectations, and council members responded with advice to develop trust with department heads and external groups.
- Council-Staff Interaction: Swanson described his role as a communication bridge. He supports an open-door policy and ensuring consistent messaging to the council. Council members stressed the importance of building trust with staff and avoiding conflicting messages to the public.
- Union Relations: Swanson noted experience with up to seven collective bargaining groups and a belief in competitive wages to retain talent. He confirmed active involvement in negotiations.
- Leadership Style: He described an open-door, active-listening approach, collaborative team building, and a focus on mentoring and succession planning.
- Regional Leadership: Swanson advocated for a regional approach, citing examples of working with state and federal leaders and using regional planning for growth.
- State Intervention: Swanson suggested proactively planning for state limitations, using data-driven advocacy, and working through state leagues of cities to address erosion of local control.
- Strategic Planning: He expressed strong support, noting his current citizen-driven strategic planning process and his belief in using outside facilitators.
- Weaknesses: Swanson acknowledged he can be passionate and that some may perceive it negatively, but he works to focus on facts rather than emotion.
- Long-term Challenges: He identified team building, infrastructure, homelessness, and innovation as priorities, emphasizing listening and data.
- Economic Development and Housing: Swanson highlighted public-private partnerships, workforce housing, and his experience attracting a Costco and other developments through relationship building.
- Downtown Revitalization: He described his role in creating a "foodery" (phoodery) in a fire-damaged downtown, serving as an anchor for further development. He also mentioned bringing companies into downtown Medford with a parking garage.
- Workforce Diversity: Swanson advocated for recruiting early (high school) and ensuring the workforce reflects the community's demographics.
- Career Moves and Failures: He explained that he returned to a previous city because they asked him back. His greatest failure was initially not recognizing the values of a Maine coastal community, but he learned to adapt. His greatest successes included mentoring individuals who became leaders in other cities.
- Staying Current: Swanson participates in ICMA, state associations, regional manager groups, and supports staff attending professional conferences.
- Holding Employees Accountable: He emphasized proactive communication, fair evaluations, and consistent, transparent accountability.
- Disagreeing with Council: Swanson said he would provide balanced information and support the council's decision, even if he disagrees. He noted that healthy disagreement is part of democracy.
- Work-Life Balance and Stress Management: He mentioned physical fitness, establishing habits, and accepting criticism as part of the job. He stressed being present during emergencies.
- Empowering Department Heads: Swanson supports bottom-up innovation, setting a culture of openness, and backing new ideas.
- Airport Experience: He discussed working with the military on runway projects and challenges with litigation and project management.
- Working with In-House Legal: Swanson affirmed he would rely on the city attorney's advice and integrate legal counsel proactively.
- Council Feedback on First 90 Days: Council members emphasized getting to know staff, community stakeholders, the media, and building trust slowly. They advised against acting hastily.
- Public Q&A Responses: Swanson answered questions on homelessness (police-mental health partnerships), tax credits (viewed as investments when done right), and home rule (local decisions are best).
Key Outcomes
- The interview was conducted; no vote or decision on the city manager appointment was made during the meeting. The council will proceed with its selection process. The meeting adjourned unanimously on a motion.
Meeting Transcript
Scott here Waters. Here. Well, we're here to interview Eric Swanson and I don't think any of these council members have ever had this job to do. I've had it a couple times. So I would suggest uh we didn't go through this type of process. No, no. I would suggest we give Mr. Swanson a chance to give some opening remarks and we'll go from for some questions. How's that sound? Sure, and I'll I'll try to be respectful of time. I know we've got just so much time. Okay, all right. No doubt. Take your time. All right. Well, okay, I'm really humbled to be here today uh speaking with you about uh role as a city manager if you so choose. And uh this has been you know, growing up here and going to school here, and then uh you know becoming a member of the 185th at a young age, a 19th, you know, taught me the values of of servant leadership and working in communities. Um the experience I got there as a 19-year-old airman, crash firefighter, uh was invaluable because it allowed me to work be in a workspace, but also going to college. Um also graduated uh University of South Dakota, where I met my bride, and uh we've uh been 38 years later. We're still still uh we're empty nesters at this point. But uh anyway, so a lot of a lot of really great things happened to me in Sioux land, if you consider Yangton and you know, growing up here, you know, almost uh over half my life in this in this community in this area in this region. And uh I've always had to be honest, I I have always had this idea that someday I'd like to be the city manager of Sioux City as as I got in this career and you know, saw what was happening to my community and understanding you know more and more as I got older in this business, um, the kind of things that happened. And you know, great things are happening here. I had a great tour this morning. Uh Marty, who uh you know uh you know, pretty much put all the information out there, didn't get a lot of chances to ask questions. He was you know, but that's okay. You know, that's sometimes you know there's a there that's why God gives us two years, one mouth, right? You gotta listen to more than what we talk and as going around that was definitely informative and the kind of investments that this city's made in their future just is to be um congratulated, and you're doing good good work here, and I'm proud to be a Siouxidian. And uh so that's kind of that's kind of how I got here. I mean, I I as I mentioned before I had the uh starting my career in the military and the guard at 19, you know, doing my original enlistment of six years, and then always had it if I had an opportunity to be an officer, you know, I wanted to take take that chance or have that opportunity happen for me. Um so I mean it's kind of been parallel with my my my job, which has been a real blessing. Not uh it doesn't happen all the time, um, especially the way the guard system works and promotions and stuff, but I was able to uh uh finally uh be promoted to colonel uh full bird um and during that career um uh deployed to Iraq and uh understand what it is to be leadership under fire. Um not that city manager necessarily are getting shot at every day or having you know that kind of thing, but the stress is there sometimes and and re responding to those in a calm way and and with leadership skills that I learned from that. Um yeah, I feel like I could make I would be a good candidate for this position, especially with some of the challenges that you are facing. I've seen in the community with the infrastructure, homeless, um, some of the other things that that uh are challenging uh to say the least, but have experience with so thank you again and uh appreciate hearing your questions we're just gonna start with Matthew and ask questions as we go if that's okay with you guys. So Matthew, you can lead it off. Yeah, you can ask whatever you want. One's fairly straightforward, but please tell us why you're attracted to this position with the city of Sioux City. Well, I think the best days for Sioux City are ahead, you know. I and I want to and I would love to be part of that. And I think I bring you know the skills and the skill set that's that uh you're looking for experience, um, some successes in economic development, community development, um, success just infrastructure development, grant writing, uh, being able to secure grants for a lot of the projects that uh that the cities that I work for were involved with. I always felt like that was something that I always look for opportunities to be able to leverage funding from state sources, federal sources. So I think with the kind of things that you would like to see happen here, and I say you collectively would like to see in this community would like to see. Um I think I I have that ability to bring some of those experiences to the to the position. The City of Sioux City is considerably larger than your current community and any of the other cities in which you have served as the chief administrative officer in the past. Therefore, what challenges do you expect to encounter in managing a significantly larger municipal government and what strategies will you employ to address those challenges? Sure. Well, so a couple things I'll say. One is uh the community the community that I'm currently serving, as you may know, went through a significant disaster, a wildfire went through the community, took out about 25 percent of the city. Um and I felt uh uh I was asked to be the interim and then eventually the full-time city manager, and I felt an obligation to help them work through that.
openpublica.com