The three candidates — presented in the order they met with reporters at the city’s Busch Building on Wednesday morning — include former Roanoke, Virginia city manager Bob Cowell; current Republic city administrator David Cameron; and current Springfield-Branson National Airport aviation director Brian Weiler. They are finalists among a group of more than 70 applicants for the job.
Ahead of the event, the city's chief spokesperson Cora Scott told Ozarks Public Radio that it's possible City Council could choose a new city manager shortly after the candidates' two-day visit. But Scott says the elected councilmembers also must work out a contract, including the position's $350,000 salary, with the candidate they choose.
That contract must be approved by City Council — meaning there will be a public hearing at a regular Monday-night City Council meeting where ordinary residents may have their say, typically followed by a second reading and vote at the next Council meeting two weeks later.
Council held a special closed meeting, permitted under Missouri's Sunshine Law, to discuss personnel matters on Wednesday afternoon following the news conferences and had another similar meeting scheduled for late Thursday morning.
Cowell, Cameron and Weiler spoke to news media for some 40 minutes each Wednesday morning. Here are brief highlights of just some of their comments.
Springfield city manager finalists introduce themselves
Before taking questions from nine Springfield journalists representing digital, audio, print and TV media, each of the candidates introduced himself in his own words.
Comments by the candidates have been edited for reader clarity in this online report.
Bob Cowell, former city manager, Roanoke, Virginia
"I'll give you the very quick [version]; this will not be the five-minute elevator speech itself. So I'm Bob, and as I've mentioned, I'm born and raised here in Missouri. All my family is still in Missouri, over on the St. Louis side of the of the state, and have been working for 30 years, helping communities in a variety of different roles, most recently as the city manager for the city of Roanoke, Virginia, which is a city of 100,000 in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains. And before that, I was the deputy city manager and briefly interim city manager in Amarillo, Texas, which is a city of 200,000 up in the panhandle of Texas.
"And then lots of other opportunities and jobs associated with those. I always like to say that I literally have been involved in pretty much everything from airport to Zoom through those 30 years of career. I started off as a city planner and then moved into city management about halfway through through my career. [I'm a] St. Louis University, graduate and University of Tennessee graduate school, graduate and credential manager through [the International City/County Management Association], certified urban planner through [the American Planning Association], and some other things associated with that. And I always have to end on, of course, those positive note, which I've been married to a wonderful woman for over 30 years. And as we said, as I said earlier with others, we have shared our lives with any number of rescue basset hounds, that's our dog of choice. So happy to be here, happy to visit Springfield again. I've been to Springfield many, many times over my life and stuff, but it's been really nice to be back and spend some time here and get to know the community, get to know the council, get to know folks that work in the organization a little bit more, and answer questions that folks are having their minds."
David Cameron, current city administrator, Republic
"I'm David Cameron. I am the city administrator in Republic, Missouri. Been there for nine years in July. Prior to that, I was in Siloam Springs, Arkansas. I got there in 1999 and left in 2016.
"I'm a 417 native. I grew up in Miller, Missouri, just down the road. So coming back to the Ozarks in 2016 was pretty cool, because I grew up here. I know what it's like. I mean, [city public information director Cora Scott and I] were talking about remembering the days of running around the Battlefield Mall, when it was Aladdin's Castle and Camelot Music and County Seat, I forgot to throw that one out there, so.
"But it's good to be back in Springfield. It's great to be in this position and considered as a finalist. It's pretty humbling. It's a big step. It's a large city, a lot of large challenges, and so.
"But something of being in Northwest Arkansas and part of a much larger region — one of the fastest-growing regions in the nation — but also coming back, to coming home, there's a lot of upside, a lot of potential. I believe in this region, I believe in this, this part of the country. I believe in the state of Missouri. I believe in what we can do. I believe we could be a trendsetter. I think there's a lot of things that are that are possible. There are big challenges, but there's also big opportunities. There's also a lot of big success that we've already, we've already seen, not just in Republic, but also in the entire region."
Brian Weiler, current director of aviation, Springfield-Branson National Airport
"I'm the director of the Springfield-Branson National Airport, and obviously I put myself in the hat for consideration of being the next city manager, and I'm anxious to do that. I've been in the community in my role for 14 years. Moved here with two kids in grade school and two kids in high school. My wife works here locally and enjoyed my time here, and this is an opportunity for me to grow and possibly expand and continue in the community that I've grown to love."
KSMU asked each candidate what they see as Springfield's biggest problem or challenge, and its biggest opportunity. If selected as city manager, what would they do to address those factors?
Bob Cowell
"Sure, I mean, you know, challenges. And I like that, you're phrasing it, challenges and opportunities, because I really do think that challenges hopefully always offer some kind of opportunity associated with it as well, and there's a couple of those that I see here, some of which are applicable everywhere.
"You're always challenged with trying to continue for economic growth. So you certainly want to continue to have that taking place here. There's a lot of really good economic growth going on here, but you can never have enough associated with it, and especially in communities in Missouri that are so dependent on sales tax to be able to actually do what it is that the citizens require for the services.
"The other challenge, I think, that exists, is the community is going through change. It's changing in city manager leadership. There have been some changes within the senior leadership in the city, as well as in other entities in the community. You've got, of course, a new mayor coming in and at least one new councilmember coming in, those will create both opportunities and no doubt change and no doubt angst among some in the community. And so those are going to be really important to manage through, and certainly things that I've managed through in other communities and other localities with it, but, but definitely those.
"I think the opportunities are that, you know a lot of people, I think forget just how large Springfield is. It's the third-largest city, obviously, in the state. I think if you ask most people across Missouri, they wouldn't necessarily make that connection. There's less than 1% of the cities in the country are actually the size of Springfield, and I think there's because of that, there's this enormous potential that exists here, potential to build off of the strong business community you have here, build off of the anchor institutions, with the university and with the health care providers. You got outstanding park system as well as kind of outdoor environment, all of those things also, I think, speak very well to the communities that I've worked in over the last 30 years, which is what interested me in the position, and trying to connect those dots with it as well."
David Cameron
"So let's start with your first question, what is its biggest opportunity? Would be collaboration that actually extends itself to action. So there's a lot of collaboration that already takes place in the Springfield area. Working with it, I think there's more opportunity there for us to work together collectively on much larger issues. I do think that poverty, that the poverty issues, crime issues, things of that nature that have been collectively been worked on. I know that there's been effort in those areas, but from an economic development perspective, we got to continue to work on those areas to be even more attractive to the development side, but also to get also remember, there is opportunities that for people want to live, work and play in the Ozarks. And so there's, there's shortages of doctors, there's shortages of things that we got to attract to this region that make it very difficult, and we got to continue to work on those areas. And so I'm sorry, what was the other question?"
[KSMU's Gregory Holman:] "Other side of it, is opportunity [versus] biggest problem. And then, if you're selected for this position, what do you intend to do to address those?"
"Well, you're going to do that through the employees. So really, for me, I'm a big advocate for the team that you have, and you've got to empower them to see what those challenges are, because I believe one person coming in suggesting that they know the answer to all the problems would be completely nearsighted. There is no way I know every problem or every solution, but I also believe in the power of what you can do, collaborating with your staff, what you can do, collaborating with the community
"And you bring them into the problem, so they can become part of the solution. So I think that's a tremendous opportunity. I think there is a hunger and a desire in this in this community, in this region, to do that. So I think there's been a lot of looking at looking at government to fix all problems. I think there has to be a collaborative way to address those needs. And so that's what I look forward to doing, if I was selected, was to come in and to empower and to engage all the different members of the community. And I'm talking about the development community, the faith-based community, all the members that have some — the neighborhood communities, I've learned a lot today about communities and neighborhoods, and so I think you have got to be you got to listen on the front end. And then as manager, I'd come in and bring all those together to try to find solutions collectively, not as an individual. I will — There's no way. I don't have enough hours in a day to figure all that out by myself."
Brian Weiler
"I think we're like a lot of Midwestern cities our size. We certainly have our share of challenges, whether it be low-income housing, the lack of affordable housing, homelessness, issues with with crime, jobs. I mean, there's all those factors that are out there. What I think makes us a little unique is Springfield's collaborative environment, how we as community and stakeholders and leaders — there's not only I mean, really, there's an expectation of working together, of collaborating. We've seen people come in, you know, new positions in [Missouri State University] and different organizations. You know, one of the expectations is that we try to work together. I think the previous management and council and community leaders and stakeholders that are out there, we have a lot of positive things that are going on. I'm very excited about, you know, what's been going on with some of the plan for Forward SGF, the comprehensive plan, some of the plans with the Art Museum, the expansion there, the new Jordan Creek, [the Lake Springfield plan].
"It's those things that are focusing on our quality of life and quality of place [that] are exciting to me. You know — running the airport, which is an economic jewel for the region — I mean, we have an economic impact in excess of $500 million per year. I think our efforts on workforce development to try to attract additional employers and increase the training so that we can get our per-capita income up, have higher-paying jobs, so hopefully, — like, my kids would be willing to stay here, we have opportunities for kids to do that. I think the synergies between our educational institutions and manufacturing, the Center for Advanced Manufacturing through Ozarks Tech, how we've seen a burst of activity like Partnership Industrial Center West. In trying to identify additional growth areas at the metropolitan area, we certainly have our challenges, but I wouldn't be taking on this responsibility if I wasn't excited about some of the opportunities we have. So yeah, that gives you an idea."
