There we go.

Good afternoon, everyone.

My name is Mayor Anders Ibsen.

On behalf of the city council, thank you so much for being here today for your interest in the City of Tacoma's city manager recruitment process.

This evening's program is one of several public opportunities the city has provided for community participation in the process.

Planning for the recruitment began in June 2025 through our operational strategy and administrative committee, which have been open to the public to allow community members to observe the process and provide input.

In October 2025, the city conducted a stakeholder survey to gather feedback from city staff and the community.

Participants were asked to submit one question they would want to ask city manager candidates, identify the top three knowledge skills and abilities needed for the role, and rank the key competencies previously identified by the city council.

A total of 318 responses were received.

On January 27th, human resources provided an update on the recruitment process during a city council meeting, which included an opportunity for public comment.

Throughout the process, community input has been used to inform the selection process, interview questions, and candidate screening.

Earlier today, community members selected by city council participated in interview panels.

And this evening you'll have an opportunity to provide feedback on the finalists.

All of this input is critical in helping City Council make its decision on the city's next city manager.

We truly appreciate you taking the time to engage with us.

Community input is an important part of this process, and your participation helps ensure that we select a city manager who understands and reflects the values, priorities, and needs of Tacoma.

At this point, I'd like to turn this program over to Cliff Moore from Profman, who has been working closely with the city council throughout this recruitment.

Cliff will briefly walk through this process leading up to today and explain what you can expect this afternoon.

Cliff Thank you, Mayor and Council, and good afternoon to all of you.

I'll add my thanks to each of you coming out today to uh participate in this important uh decision for the city of Tacoma and also welcome all of those that are watching on the live stream right now.

As the mayor said, my name is Cliff Moore.

I'm the consultant with Prothman, the executive recruiting firm that's been working with the city on this important process.

Uh I started this process months ago with the human resource team with mayor and council and have uh done uh stakeholder interviews with all of the council members to get their input on the kind of personal characteristics and professional and academic preparation that is essential for your next city manager.

We did a national outreach for this position.

Uh we had 72 applications from uh we had 72 applications from 16 different states and the District of Columbia.

Forty of the applications were from the state of Washington, and the other 32 were outside of the state of Washington.

I'm a former city manager myself, a former county manager and longtime county department director, so I have some understanding of sort of the nature of this work.

So I screened all of those 72 applications, and based on that uh feedback from council and the position profile that was created to advertise the position and the formal job description.

I identified 19 individuals who looked like they met or exceeded the minimum qualifications, and also who had the kind of the personal characteristics based on their their written materials that looked like they would be a good fit for Tacoma.

I invited those 19 individuals to uh preliminary Zoom interview with me.

Two of those individuals did withdraw at that point, and I did conduct the 17 interviews for um uh the 17 preliminary interviews.

I wrote up detailed notes from all of those interviews and packaged up that material with the applicant's uh resumes, cover letters, and response to supplementary questions.

Provided the a letter of recommendation uh and ranking for council.

They met in executive session and decided that there were five individuals that they wanted to move to the next stage, which was a Zoom interview with all of all of council and the mayor.

Subsequently, another individual withdrew at that point, and council did then have uh Zoom interviews with four applicants.

And they met again in executive session after those uh interviews and decided to invite us finalists the two individuals that you'll see tonight.

After after um uh in a few moments, you will get to hear from each of those finalists.

That each of them will do a presentation, and there will be some questions that the council will ask of of those uh candidates.

Um following the presentations and the questions, there will be kind of an open uh mingling time over here where you see the tables.

There'll be an opportunity for you all to visit with candidates, and there will be a comment card on the tables for for each candidate.

So you'll be free to write some uh comments for counsel to help inform their decision, talk about the the strengths of each candidate, maybe the concerns that you see, and I'll collect those forms at the end of the session this afternoon and provide those to council, and they will be uh used to help inform their decision.

They've scheduled again an executive session for the third of March to deliberate and um and then they may take action later that night at a council meeting on March 3rd.

So mayor and council, thank you again for the opportunity to work with you and I appreciate the opportunity, and um we look forward to the presentations this evening.

I don't see the screen.

Your first present representative.

Yes, sir.

Yes.

Right there.

Presentations and questions.

Yeah.

And for those watching online, we're now waiting on our first presenter or Ms.

Yolande Lewis.

Yes, and while we're waiting, absolutely, those who are interested in participating or watching online or in general, uh, you're welcome to provide any feedback that you find with uh today's presentations or or subsequently uh to the city council by just visiting our website, chacoma.gov.

You're welcome to email the city council with any questions, inquiries, or feedback.

It's a long, long walk from where Yolanda has been waiting for this moment, but I'm proud to introduce to you Yolanda Lewis.

Well, good afternoon.

I'm a little bit winded.

Uh so I'm gonna so you could tell that I don't exercise enough, and so I need to fix that.

Um, good afternoon.

I'm Yolanda Lewis.

I am one of the candidates for city manager, and I'm really honored to be here today.

Um, I want to thank the mayor and council members for inviting me to share more about my experience.

Um, and I want to thank all of you for being here.

Um it's late in the afternoon, but you made it time to be here, and I think that that's significant because there are big decisions about this role, but also big decisions about the next phase of city management.

So before I uh get started, to share a little bit about my experience.

I want to um I I know that I I'm in Washington State, and and I know that you all just had a big moment.

So for those of you who are Seacalts fans, congratulations.

Um I also know that uh at least what three Super Bowl halftime performers have performed here.

And so, in my in my best interest and yours, I will not perform today.

All right, so let me tell you a little bit about myself.

About me.

Um I characterize myself as a lifetime public service practitioner, uh, often acting as a bridge between the strategic leadership, um, council folks and elected officials, and the execution of really responsive policy.

I am the daughter, proud daughter of a retired law enforcement officer and a public health professional who also was a committee volunteer.

They both later became business owners, instilling in me the importance of service, teamwork, and ingenuity.

I hold a bachelor's degree in criminal justice, a master's in public administration, and I have my executive leadership training from Yale School of Management.

I have spent the last 20 years of my career leading large-scale public-facing operations, acting as a systems expert.

I've had the pleasure of working alongside skilled professionals, thoughtful elected officials, and passionate community voices that help to tackle some of the nation's most important challenges.

Challenges like public safety, challenges like economic development, health systems redesign, government performance, mental health and substance use, homelessness, youth violence, and education.

I have reported to and act as the principal advisor to elected officials and supported legislative priorities across diverse communities.

As the chief administrative officer of Fulton County, I have managed mission critical departments like HR, IT, finance, legal, and strategy, communications, and universal services.

Each time I re-engineered these operations to consistently meet performance metrics, to create a culture of high performance, and work with outcome-driven teams to consistently garner positive customer service reviews from the consistent from the constituents we served.

These, among other achievements, demonstrate my ability to be operationally sound, to be efficient, and constantly seek exceptional service outcomes.

What I think sets me apart is that I have cross-sector experience.

It is an opportunity to blend experiences from both the government and philanthropic sectors.

It has given me the opportunity to understand what true engagement and cross-sector collaboration means.

In all of these roles that I've served in, I've consistently understood the importance of designing effective solutions, leveraging good policy and strategic investments, and activating the use of data and information to remove barriers where it counts most.

This blend of cross-sector experience has given me the perspective to work across jurisdictions, mobilize people, mobilize people, policy, resources, and be supportive of the infrastructure we need to do the big things.

Often the people who are closest to the problems and can help us solve them.

I've worked on behalf of communities, including being appointed by the mayor in Washington, DC to serve on their racial equity commission, and I've created at least two nationally recognized programs, one of which I will share with you today.

Most importantly, I've garnered over 22 million dollars to support community programs to help to help our neighbors and community organizations that are doing the good work.

Fueling the numbers I've shared with you are my professional values, which I center at the core of everything I do.

These values guide how I lead, how I interact with others, and the sense of responsibility and decision making that is important to me.

I believe in community, and that means creating connectivity to share language and values that binds us.

It also means that I work very hard to strengthen the government, I mean strengthen the relationship between government and the people who it serves.

It's about stewardship for me, making sure that I'm transparent and honoring the mission of our resources, maximizing impact where we can and closing gaps where it matters.

I'm innovative and I believe in innovation.

Being innovative about introducing new ideas and concepts, and even if we fail forward, if we fail and it works, it made sense.

It is the opportunity to build something that goes beyond our administration, our tenure in our roles, and creates something that we can have lasting that will have lasting impressions beyond the moment.

So I want to tell you two stories about public innovation.

I believe public innovation is the opportunity to be thoughtful and creative and build out strategies that live in our communities but beyond our time.

And so I'll tell you two quick stories about person-centered design.

One is about a family and their unprecedented loss and how it informed national strategies.

And the next is about a building that could have been, could not have been more of an opportunity to build something that the community needed.

So this is a picture of Nigel Cullins and his mother at the top right.

Nigel is a 22-year-old young man who was loved by his family, loved life, and proudly served his community.

His mother is a trained medical professional.

Her son, like so many other people across the country, suffered a mental health crisis.

One that she knew that she would need help in order to take care of him.

So she did what most people would do.

She called 911 for help.

In her call, as you can see, she articulated my son needs to be transported to a behavioral health clinic.

He needs EMS.

I don't want to worry about him being killed.

Nigel was hallucinating, but he was not violent, and so his call was deprioritized.

Help showed up three hours later, and by that time, Nigel had gone to a local restaurant where he worked and was shot and killed by law enforcement.

Now I did not know Nigel nor his mother.

I eventually had an opportunity to meet them.

And when I did, I listened.

I brought people to the table, chiefs of police, people with lived experience, funders, nonprofit organizations, and academia.

And together, we co-created a model that would help families like Nigel's.

We created what is now called the person centered triage approach, a mediation-based strategy that goes into 911 call centers to help them to help them articulate, help them identify a mental health call, but also the right response.

Now, these elements are important because mental health and substance use calls have a significant impact on resources.

Here, TBTPD is here, and apparently, according to data, 21 to 38% of the calls that come into TPD are mental health substance use and quality of life calls.

That program is now a national program.

And I won't go through the 911 call and tell you more about it, but you can scan the QR code and it'll take you to information about Nigel and the program.

I share this only because I don't sit on the sidelines.

Whenever there is a problem or a solution to be had, I really move into action and I bring community partners and folks along with me in order to solve that problem.

The next story is about the building.

The second story is about a dated county building that needed to be renovated.

It was being renovated only to improve services and access to structures that were important to citizens as they navigated their business.

The plan was to simply create a space where they didn't have to go to five buildings in order to execute one task.

And in the process, something happened.

Me and one of the elected officials were walking through the hallway, and we noticed that there was a young victim, DV victim, attempting to navigate the building with two children in tow.

She needed to enter multiple building spaces in order to do paperwork.

The story of her circumstances were on full display and had no way to shelter herself or her children.

Immediately after the encounter, I represented new options to consider to our board.

This needed to be a much more dynamic space to meet the moment.

The final design, the final design was a modern space, combining digital government, legal services, domestic violence support, housing navigators, child safe spaces, a business center, and a co-working and community meeting space, all in a multilingual environment that was tech powered.

I won't go through much more of that space, but of course, you can scan the QR code and see more about that facility.

Now, why do I present these examples?

I present these examples because I think it demonstrates the ability to fit in here in Tacoma.

You're already working on many of these strategies.

You're thinking about intentional placemaking.

You're thinking about how to respond better to crisis.

You're building out structures that are that make communities safe.

And so for me, it is an opportunity to fit in to a city already on the move.

My vision for city manager.

The first question why Tacoma?

Well, you're here today.

Tacoma is a very civically engaged community.

Not because I'm here and I see you, but I've been searching around and really listening to how you engage.

You engage and participate in the budget.

You engage in how you want issues and challenges resolved.

And for me, that's important.

It's important to note that government cannot do it alone.

And when they have a civically active set of residents, it's easier to build out strategies and solutions that matter.

The second is Tacoma has a roadmap.

So the city manager doesn't have to guess what their next job will be.

It's already written, and there's a roadmap, and my job, I think, is just to bring that vision to life and make it a reality.

And finally, commitment to safe, a safe, well, and vibrant city.

That is most important to me.

And it doesn't take any convincing.

You've already moved forward with ensuring that this space is safe, well, culturally vibrant, and I think that means that for me, that's a good fit.

So how do I approach this opportunity?

I approach this opportunity like I am approach most, to listen well, to ensure that I understand the challenges, frustrations, and opportunities.

I know that there are at least settlements that have been played out, which I think that in as we think about what risks mean, to really navigate what risk management and mitigation means.

So this is my model for how I think about approaching the city manager role.

Tacoma is a strategy-driven city.

We have nearly 40 individual plans that fuel this vision of the city council.

What I envision is an opportunity to create immediate value by honing in on elements to improve the infrastructure.

Strategies that are not just aspirational but now achievable, but also have a level of consistency, performance, integration, as well as intentionality.

The framework that you see before you is how I think about mobilizing strategy, making sure that we have good attention to financial operations and controls, really thinking about efficiency, organizate building organizational capacity and capability across our departments and our 4,000 dedicated employees, thinking about regulatory compliance and risk and identifying risks that are at the top of our list for mitigation, customer service and responsiveness, and then being able to be thoughtful about excellence and innovation.

It is my belief that bold strategic bold strategic plan is defined by not just the destination, but the operational excellence needed to power the engine for us to get there.

That's what I bring.

20 years of building systems, directing resources, creating sustainable models, and partnering with communities, partnering with communities and elected officials to solve the hard problems.

I hope that I can be a good partner to our community, and I hope that I can call Tacoma home at some point in the near future.

Shelley.

Thank you, Yolanda.

And now I think the council has a few questions for you.

So Mayor?

Thank you, Ms.

Lewis.

Welcome and thank you for your presentation.

Thank you.

Our first question is how do you translate council's adopted priorities into operational accountability?

And when financial or performance indicators signal a problem, how do you intervene and advise council on corrective action?

So I think part of how I approach, which I I kind of share my strategy around how I think about performance and execution.

For me, it is really being able to be thoughtful about how we do that, to ensure that we have the resources in order to make sure that your policy decisions are a reality.

And when a decision is communicated and we start working to make sure that we communicate with you often, early and continuously as we go through the process.

And I think I I got a chance to meet some of the department heads today.

They are very committed to this organization and to the city.

And so for me, it is about being honest and having honest dialogue and when we need to make a shift or change, being adaptable, but then also presenting, I think, as we talked about today, the options for those pivots if necessary.

May I drill them and ask a follow-up question on that?

Sure.

So in your materials and in our conversation, you had indicated a need for greater focus, for example, when it comes to priorities.

You've also spoken in your materials about budget and everything serving the intent of the strategy makers, us on the council.

So in principle, we can all agree to that that focus is a good thing.

Focus also requires saying no to people, right?

It requires saying no to anyone from a member or members of the council.

It can mean saying no to city unions, members of the community, you name it, right?

So can you talk?

Can you talk to us about how you reconcile that respect for the relationship between manager and policymakers while at the same time having boundaries and saying no and maybe provide an example of when you've done that?

Yeah, so I look at my role as being a protector of good government.

And what that means for me is that when decisions uh need to be made that might put us in a position that is not where we want to be, it is having honest dialogue about what the end result will be.

Um I don't think it is this idea of a heart no.

I think it is a no right, not right now, maybe not under the circumstance the circumstances that are presented at this moment.

Um maybe it's a half no.

We can't do everything, but we certainly can do a portion of what you're asking.

And I think more importantly, it is about communicating across all of the council to ensure that whatever that yes or half yes is that you all agree and have consensus about where you want to go as a result of that.

Um I've had I've had that experience quite often, actually.

Um, and when we've had to make budgetary decisions with the 20 elected officials that I've worked with or prioritize what is most important, um, it is really trying to get down to a short list about if we had five priorities, we're down now to three, and now we need to have a conversation about which three are most important, which can be done this year, which can be done next year.

But I I think for me the most important thing is to be honest, transparent, give you kind of a results on the other side of your decision, but also when when when available, try to make um good on those challenges, maybe not today, maybe in a year, but at least consider them to be an opportunity for for um you know moving forward.

Thank you.

Our second question is what role do you see the city manager playing in supporting public safety departments while also advancing broader community outcomes?

Yeah, so um as I mentioned, I have um I have a specific um you know affiliation to public safety, not only because I've worked with public safety entities across my career, but because my father is a public safety um you know first responder.

And so for me, I think that um I look at public safety in a way that it impacts everything.

It's not just about you know the the law enforcement going out to a call, it is about economic development, it is about having a safe environment for businesses to come to.

It is uh about having uh safe spaces for people to enjoy the summer in spring.

It is about um ensuring that um people feel comfortable in a space.

It impacts everything.

And so I think for me, um I think public safety investments are important.

I think um that we should look at public safety in the broader context of what it means to our city beyond just the legal law enforcement piece.

Um, and I think that we also need to be very creative about how we think about public safety.

It has shifted and changed over the years to alternative response, but also um including none sworn officers in the process.

And so I I I support law enforcement and public safety, but I also think it is always an opportunity for us to continue honing on what that means in a community.

Thank you.

And our final question is how will you structure and oversee community engagement processes to ensure diverse community voices are heard and meaningfully informed the options and recommendations brought forward to the council.

Yeah.

You know, I see myself as a conduit to ensuring that the voices of the community are heard and show up in the decisions that you have to make.

But I do see it as an opportunity for me when I have a chance, and also the department has in the city to be able to hone in on what's important to residents.

It might not be that everyone can be in a space, and maybe we need to provide other options.

I think I gave the example of Nigel and his family.

That whole strategy was built off of community engagement, engaging people that I had never talked to before, but wanted to hear their story and then make that into good policy.

And so I think community engagement is important and now work to do that every day.

Thank you so much.

And thank you so much for your presentation.

Uh, Cliff Moore is next.

And uh let's give a big round of applause to Ms.

Lewis for uh come up here.

Yes, uh Landa, thank you very much, and community, thank you again for your participation.

Uh if you'll just give us a moment to make the switch, uh, your next candidate, Hyun Kim will be out and uh have an opportunity to give his presentation and respond to questions from the mayor.

So just give us a moment.

Thank you, Cliff.

And another friendly reminder that if you have any feedback for us about either the candidates, the process itself, or just anything else that you think we should be looking into, uh you're welcome to go to Tacoma.gov and you can email or call the city council.

We'd love to hear from you.

And our uh second uh candidate is gonna be up here shortly.

Yeah, give or take, yeah.

I promise that Jen's in the building.

Appreciate your patience.

He's just been sequestered in a soundproof room on the other side of the dome here, but he'll be here in just a moment, I promise.

This isn't Nick Beth, this is different.

Oh, sorry, the Scottish play.

So for the viewers that are uh watching on the live stream, and those of you that are here in the building, um, please welcome Hyun Kim as our second candidate this evening.

Thank you so much.

All right.

All right.

Um good afternoon, everyone.

My name is Hun Kim.

I'd like to slide start with my presentation and just formally informally introduce myself again.

What's in a name?

My name is Jun Kim.

Um it's 2026.

I have uh been alas at trying to find a way in which to phonetically spell my name because first and foremost, I have a very hard to pronounce first name.

Um most folks can pronounce phonetically Y-U-N.

If you work backwards and add the H, it's Hyun.

Um and I've come to realize why it's so hard.

You know, whether it's a large language model, AI, how do you phonetically spell Hyun?

Why is it so difficult?

I've come to realize there's a certain automotive company in this country from South Korea that pronounces my name wrong.

So that's my name.

Um I uh my parents immigrated to this great nation when I was six months old, and we uh moved to Anchorage, Alaska, and um started my you know, my childhood, lived in Anchorage, Alaska.

Uh my parents got tired of the cold.

We moved to southern Nevada, and um I went to high school as well as um college on scholarship at the University of Nevada Nevada, Las Vegas.

That's where I'm from.

I went to school for public administration.

I started my career in municipal service with the city of Henderson in uh Henderson, Nevada.

And it's a city back then about approximately the same size as uh Tacoma is today, uh about a quarter million in population.

Um they've grown certainly um quite a bit more uh in the preceding decades.

Um but that's where I'm from.

From a family perspective, my wife April and I have four children uh who called Tacoma home a second time.

Um prior to coming here a second time.

Um I lived in Fife in Northeast Tacoma, and I am back here now.

So that's from a family background.

Um professionally, I am an international city manager, city county manager, association credential manager uh with over 20 years of municipal experience.

Fifteen of those years I have served in a leadership role, uh leading departments and and cities, and that is who I am.

And I want to talk a little bit about my executive experience.

Um I started my career um on a leadership standpoint in the private sector.

I was hired uh at a bank called Rocky Mountain Bank in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

I worked in both commercial lending, uh commercial credit, as well as public sector uh principal preservation investments for municipalities in Wyoming.

And from there, I got my first um opportunity to join a uh community called Pinedale as their community development director, uh, working on land use.

Uh from Pine Dale, I took my first opportunity to lead a municipal organization uh in a community called Afton, Wyoming.

Um, and I was their town administrator for about four years.

And during that time, while I was working, I returned to school and and while working full-time, I pursued uh my uh public administration degree, uh, my master's in public administration degree at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, Afton, Wyoming.

So three years commuting, working full-time, and at the same time pursuing an online MBA.

That's those formative years, where my wife was essentially a single mother for about three years while I was doing all those things.

From Afton, I took a step back and joined the city of Boulder City, Nevada as the finance director, where I worked on both balancing the budget, coming up with the formative annual budget for the city.

Also worked on a number of real estate transactions, large power purchasing agreements with all the property that the city owned.

From there, I I first came to the South Sound and had an opportunity to join the city of Fife as the city manager.

And I spent four years there.

And from there, I was recruited back to Wyoming at the City of Gillette, where I spent two years working on governance and transparency and trust in local government again.

And I had the opportunity to return here with my family here at the City of Tacoma as the deputy city manager for internal services.

And for the last seven months, I have served this council and then team as the interim city manager.

That's professionally, these are the executive roles that I pursued.

One of the prompts, one of the prompts.

And why Tacoma?

Professionally, I have spent the better part of 15 years working on succinct and specific problems that both have been professionally very invigorating, working with teams to ensure public safety, work on infrastructure projects, work on housing affordability, work on employee morale, culture mapping, and making improvements.

And why Tacoma is I get to have an opportunity to continue putting all of that together and working with the wonderful team here at the City of Tacoma.

We have a number of amazing and talented public servants, and that professionally is exactly what I'm pursuing, and there's there's alignment there.

From the standpoint of the challenges here at the city of Tacoma, as a candidate for this position on behalf of this council, as they are set on making some decisions for the leadership, the role of city manager.

I must state we have declared certain challenges here at the city.

We have for a number of years declared a structural deficit in our general fund.

And it's not bounded by the things that we're not doing right.

I just checked this two weeks ago.

We have 4,056 employees across our wide enterprise that are trying to serve this amazing community.

And I come to find that if we do not have the wherewithal to add more employees to support this growing community, we have to be innovative and find opportunities to not just do the steady state, not just balance our budgets and not just figure out a way in which to provide resources for our departments to serve this community professionally.

This is this is in alignment with what I want to do.

This is in alignment with what I believe I have value add to the team here at the city of Tacoma, including this elected body that is trying to do the right thing every day, and that's why Tacoma.

Personally, my wife April and I we have four kids, like I mentioned before.

We are launching our kids, and over the course of chasing this uh city manager career.

We have moved over three states over nine times.

I am looking for a home personally, where my kids can actually be proud to say I'm from Tacoma.

I have a daughter that's going to college.

I want her to know where home is, and so that's where I find myself, and that's why Tacoma.

Um early on in my career when looking at the operations of a local government, there's the basic services that we must do really well.

And when I looked at aspiration 20 years ago, I would look and say, you know, the solution to solving tomorrow's challenges, it's based on constraining yourself and not doing as much.

Twenty years later, I will say, without aspiration, what is the relevancy of what we're doing on your behalf?

And so I have come to find it is truly the currency that we have to have.

And what I would describe here is the role of the city manager, in my opinion.

Um and what I believe I've learned and studied and been operating in, the role of the city manager is to execute cleanly on behalf of the city council.

The vision comes from the council, and the execution portion has to be bounded by buy-in from you all in the community.

And that cycle of progress, what I would describe as that constant, never-ending room for improvement, providing those opportunities.

I think is imperative that that cycle continues where we can actually get the basics done, and I'll speak to that a little bit later about what I believe are success factors and what that would look like in terms of progressing as a community.

We must utilize our partners, both in nonprofit labor, as well as with our partners in the private sector to create those living wage jobs.

And I feel it's incumbent that the city manager facilitates that with the team on behalf of the council.

They want to hear different approaches.

When it comes to the real test of what an effective city manager does on behalf of an organization when it comes to partnerships with the community, partnerships with the city council, partnerships with the team, the city employees.

But recognizing where that balance needs to be tweaked, that balance needs to be moved, and the effectiveness of a city manager that understands how we can move together in a way in which we don't leave any members of any of those circles out of the line of how we're trying to work together.

I think that is a very important thing in how I approach this job.

Proactive problem solving.

It's that's the easy part.

The hard part is to report to the council where things aren't going well, and to be vulnerable enough on behalf of the team to uh state we have to take another approach.

Would you be open to that?

Um in my uh few months in service to this council.

I've heard that fairly succinctly that they want that, and uh that encourages me, and that's my approach to the job.

Um I put a statement up there.

Strategy is incredibly important to actually execute cleanly on behalf of uh the council and the community.

I think the role of the city manager and my approach to this job, I want to consider consistently work towards improving the culture of an organization and a culture upon which an organization can dare to lead, try new things, uh, at the same time, perhaps fail.

And that's hard.

We are funded by taxes and charges for services and utility fees.

It's the prerequisite is that we have the freedom to try to report back and say this is going really well and this is not going well.

And that culture, reinforcing that culture from my partners on the department ranks, from the chiefs ranks down is something that I'm very keenly interested in and constantly working towards.

And then lastly, my approach to this job is bounded on no no surprises.

Trying to inform when things aren't going well, when there's bad news coming, that's just as important as when we celebrate the wins.

So that is what you can expect from me as your city manager.

What does success look like?

Internally, success for me would look like not just balancing the budget.

Internally, uh, the metrics upon which we are measured as an organization, as a municipality when it comes to clean audits, uh comprehensive annual financial report that shows that we're doing what we need to do.

Those are all important.

But internally, um in two years, I would I would think that it would be necessary for your next city manager to develop a recovery plan with the city council, with the department directors, with our labor partners to make some hard choices.

I am not prescribing that your next city manager is going to be able to solve this in 26 or in 27.

There are compounding hard decisions to be made, transparently, and quite frankly, with the notion that we have to try some different things.

And so by uh late summer, a recovery plan that would be developed in tandem with the budget, baseline budget formation would be ready to go, so that we'd be ready by January to start deploying uh new ways in which we're operating the city.

One that's bounded on not necessarily losing our public servants.

Um I had the opportunity over the last hour in the back room to talk to a couple of our talented HR professionals and to be reminded since COVID, we have strived to bring on talent.

I look to our police department.

We are bringing on new police officers.

We have fought hard to bring the talent that we brought in.

How do we protect those jobs?

And that's what I'd like to see as a success factor as we look towards potential reorganizations with sanction from the city council.

That's a success factor.

Um additionally, uh a progress update by this time next year, sometime then, to report back on how the recovery planning efforts are going.

Um, externally, I think success for the next city manager, not describing what the vision and priorities will be.

That is the city council's uh purview.

Externally, we're meaningfully taking a look at the streets initiative, taking care of our streets, taking care of our ways in which we can actually influence outcomes when it comes to public safety response times.

It may require more employees, public servants, police officers, firefighters.

Where do we have the pressure relief file for that?

Externally, I think that's another indicator of success taking root here at the city of Tacoma.

Um then a recovery plan that's predicated on solving for X, a structural deficit is not a recovery plan.

A recovery plan that's bounded by here are the tactical things that we will be instituting over the course of the next two years in service to this is what Tacoma will look like here by 2029-2030.

That's a recovery plan.

That we will aspire and dare to do great things on behalf of not just one segment of our community, but for all Tacomans.

I think that's what success looks like.

In closing, um, I just want to state my career has been dedicated to working with some amazing talented public servants in solving complex problems that I do truly believe have strengthened organizational culture within the organizations I've been privileged to lead, and in pursuit of uh delivering excellent public services.

Um I look forward to that opportunity potentially to do that here in Tacoma as well.

From my finance and operations to executive leadership experiences across multiple communities, um, I have focused on being disciplined.

I have focused on being transparent, and I have I have strived to be collaborative at each step.

Success in Tacoma means balancing the aims of recovering from uncertainty while at the same time progressing towards the vision set out by this council.

The role of the city manager is to align community aspirations, council vision, and organizational execution, and with clear direction, measurable outcomes, and a commitment to innovation and partnership.

I think we can truly turn today's challenges into tomorrow's opportunities and our aspirations again, just to reinforce, I do not see those as a weakness.

It's our strength, it's what makes Tacoma so amazing to live and work and play, and I'm looking forward to that opportunity.

And that's probably more than 15 minutes.

Thank you for the opportunity to introduce myself formally.

I stand ready for questions.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Ibsen.

All right.

Thank you, Mr.

Kim.

I appreciate your presentation.

So our first question is um how do you translate council's adopted priorities into operational accountability?

And when financial or performance indicators signal a problem, how do you intervene and advise council on corrective action?

Thank you very much, Mayor Ibsen, and and formally, thank you for this opportunity for you and the deputy mayor and the council.

Um in executing upon a vision when it comes to the priorities of the city city council, um, I think it's very important to uh discern what parts fit in what areas and take a look at the organizational structure upon which we can actually execute.

So one priority that I've heard here at the city of Tacoma that we are striving towards is housing affordability with the tension of economic development, and I believe the role of the city manager is to bring back to you all a real set plan of how can we do it differently or how can we do it the way we're doing it because it's going well.

So taking the time to assess what's going well.

Um I've heard this from the full body here on the capacity of what we're doing today.

Um, I I didn't want to mention this from the standpoint of a scarcity standpoint, but when I look at the city of Tacoma with our 4,000 plus employees, um, one could take away that there's a lot of employees, but in that 4,000 um member team that we here have here at the City of Tacoma, there are some real pockets, and I actually don't mean to say that not every department, every division is not exceptional, but there are some really um hidden um not externally visible exceptional individual contributors when they're doing that work today, tomorrow.

Um, I think it's the job of the city manager to identify with the department directors, with the division managers, the leadership to say how can we leverage that example and make it even more so?

So if we have an individual contributor that's working on council priority A, and we can leverage other departments and other teams to actually move forward.

I think it's about you know uh the theory of action is predicated on you're gonna get something done, even if it's a small win to demonstrate to our public.

I think that's one part, um, Mayor, um, Mayor Ibsen, is that we would take that and we would try to truncate that and say, what how can we leverage the existing resources before we ask for more resources?

I think that's number one.

Thank you.

May I ask a clarifying follow-up there?

Yes, sir.

Uh so speaking of financial performance indicators uh and also just the structural deficit, and that's a very big part of the conversation there.

And so, in principle, no one is going to disagree that correcting the structural deficit is crucial to everything that we care about and that our community cares about.

The other aspect of that, of course, is that whenever you tackle huge structural problems like that, invariably that is going to mean saying no to some people.

It's going to mean saying no to me or members of the council, city unions, members of the community, uh, people who who may have very deserving projects, but at some point um reconciling the relationship of manager to policymaker with just the need for boundaries and the need for a reality check sometimes.

Um, what is your approach to that?

And can you provide an example in your career where you've done that?

Yeah, um, thank you very much, Mayor Ibsen, for that follow-up.

Um, I think the most prudent way in which I've operated in my career is to be upfront with bad news or an adverse opportunity whereupon we have to say we can't do this anymore, and being straight with the council and being succinct, I think that is that is job number one, right?

Um, from the standpoint of we're gonna take a look at this and come back to you, and then talking to our labor partners, talking to our our our leadership here at the city and working with the teams to say I always want to be collaborative in the sense of we need to take a look at our structural deficit.

What ideas do you have for me?

This is what we need to do, and then coming back to the council and being collaborative to facilitate what that might look like.

There are examples whereupon we just can't do this anymore.

The expected outcome.

And I've heard this council and previous councils I've served, um, the notion of more clearly defining what the problem statement is, what are we trying to fix or improve if it's the lives of Tacomans?

Um, and if we're not doing that, at some times there's an opportunity to reset in itself and being really kind by being up front.

We can't do this anymore, or we have to try a different way.

That's that's what I would say.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Uh question number two uh what role do you see the city manager playing in supporting public safety departments while advancing broader community outcomes?

Yeah, um, thank you very much, Mayor Ibsen.

Um as your interim city manager, um, I would say this with uh not necessarily any brevity.

I've never been an interim city manager, I've always been the new city manager, city administrator.

Um I'm on the record in talking with many groups that in supporting public safety, um, it's not just getting more police officers, more firefighters that's bounded by the general fund, right?

To say we're going to just do that without the notion of actually backing that up with dollars and cents.

Um, I think that is not something that a city manager should be doing.

What I've spoken to from a staff perspective in service to this council has been what are the indicators that we're chasing?

If it is response times, how can we get there?

Let's take a look at those things.

Um, from a South Sound 911 perspective, from a law enforcement perspective, a medical perspective, um, a firefighter's perspective, our constituents have been very loud and clear.

They want, when they call 911, they want someone to show up.

How can we do that?

Um, that's how a city manager I think would be supportive.

It's in partnership with the city council because your city manager should not be saying, Well, I have the solution, I'm gonna do this.

It has to be bounded by uh uh a through line back to the city council.

How would you like to try this?

Um my predecessor, um, Elizabeth Pauly, in working with the council yesterday on supporting the chief of police on a lateral incentive program to spend dollars on a one-time basis to incentivize lateral officers to join the police department, that's a great investment.

There's a cost to that, and being clear-eyed with the council what that cost will be.

Um, I'm immensely proud of the way that we actually teed that up for the council.

I think that's how the city manager would show up in service to public safety.

Thank you.

And our final question is how will you structure and oversee community engagement processes to ensure diverse community voices are heard and meaningfully informed the options and recommendations brought forward the council?

Yeah.

Um we have here at the city of Tacoma, um, we have an abundance in partners in community uh groups that we liaison with, that we speak to on a weekly, monthly basis.

We have, I believe, on last count, someone's gonna fact check me on this one.

Um we have a little over 33 commissions, board, and committees here at the city of Tacoma.

Um your question more uh succinctly is about how are we going to show up?

How's the city manager gonna show up and engaging with everyone?

We're gonna try new things.

We're gonna try to uh innovate.

The MCO team, it's already in process.

I think that's what really helps me in maybe that's an that's an advantage of having been here for a short time.

Um the the communication strategy plan is predicated on what we're going to be doing in moving away from long-form storytelling, short long form analog to more digital first.

Um, that's the communication piece, but in terms of engagement, um, when I talked about culture earlier.

Um of the conversations I have, and I'm so sorry, I'm I'm looking over here.

I think I should be looking over here as well.

Um, when I talk to new employees that are joining us here at the city of Tacoma, I've had the privilege of meeting uh new employees who have joined us over the course of the last seven months on a monthly basis.

Um I share with the fact that regardless of where you're working, regardless if you're working at environmental services or TPU or in our legal department, there's one thing that binds all of us on this stage and in the crowd that is working for the city.

We're public servants.

And from an engagement standpoint, we are to engage and be uh the conduit to talk to our friends and neighbors first and foremost.

And also for our uh engagement teams, we have made some organizational changes.

We have not communicated this necessarily uh enough that we are consolidating a number of our engagement efforts into PDS, our planning and development services, to say you are engaging and doing amazing things when it comes to land use for home and Tacoma.

We will also want you to engage on these other aspects of what the city is doing.

How do we leverage this?

So if every department has one or two principal engagement members, consultants, how can we leverage them to all work collectively?

That's something that I think your city manager has a specific role in in supporting this council.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mr.

Kim, for your presentation.

Thank you.

Uh again, thank you, uh Mr.

Kim, for your presentation.

And in just a moment, we'll invite you all to go to your left where the tables are set up there and have an opportunity to interact in a personal one-on-one way, ask follow-up questions to both of our candidates tonight.

And remember on the tables you'll see a uh comment card.

Please feel free to um uh take one as a photograph and a bio of each candidate, and you can uh write your strengths what you see as the strengths of each candidate, and if you have any concerns about them, I will collect these before we uh before we complete the evening this evening and make sure that council gets them to help inform their their uh decision.

I think we have about an hour for this next part of the presentation, and remember your your candidates have been on a marathon today.

They've had four different interview panels, they've had their presentation and counts and council questions this evening.

This is their their last event tonight, but tomorrow they're they're not finished.

Tomorrow they have small group conversations with council members.

Um but we invite you to engage for the next hour or so and please do fill out a comment card.

So thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Cliff.

As mentioned, we look forward to your input to help inform our decision.

Um all members of the public are invited to share your thoughts about the candidates on the common cards if you're here.

Um and if so, uh those are available at the candidates' tables to your left.

And again, thank you for your participation in the process.

Uh now please can't uh join the candidates for the meet and greet portion of the program that will conclude at six feet six fifteen p.m.

And once again, Tacoma.gov, you're welcome to email the council if you have any questions, thoughts, or anything about the candidates or the process.

Uh this concludes the special meeting of the city council.

Is there a motion to adjourn?

Move to adjourn.

Second.

Move in a second, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those supposed to say no, we are adjourned.

Thank you so much, everyone.