Fairbanks reflects on 37-year tenure with city of Phoenix - Business First of Columbus:

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This week, Fairbanks talked about his 37-yearf tenure with the city of Phoenix, nearly 20 of those yeare as itshead administrator. His last day on the job will be Nov. 5. Here’zs a look at excerptd from a conversation this week with the PhoenixBusinessw Journal. Why retire now? I started thinking about retiring fiveyears ago, but the (Phoenixs City Council) asked me to stay. We were in a rebuildinb phase. I think it’s a good time to leavew for a lotof reasons. Now we have a great grouo of department heads. Any thoughts about your successor? This is completely up to the city council. I hope they do a broadd recruitment. I think it’s good to bring people from outside.
I’n not supporting anyone covertlyor overtly. Government has become incredibly complex. A lot of what we do is dealing with all thesedifferent services. It’s a kind of businessa that is closest to beinvga conglomerate. We’ve got police, parks, aviation, libraries, water. They’re all different service So knowledge of that complexityhis important. You need a perso n to create a managementy approach thataddresses performance, morale, promotion and succession. Management is an art and a How did you decidse that municipal work wasfor you? I came from a city My grandfather was a mechanifc for the city.
My dad was an assistant chiefc of police for the city and then became the police chievin Tempe. Growing up I just had a sense of city My first job after college was with the cityhandlinhg complaints. That was an enormous education. I learned what the public cares I started from the bottom and that was the best duty for two years ... listening to complaints. What are some of your proudestt achievements? I don’t spend a lot of time listinfg achievements. I know the city is a leadef inseveral issues. The graffiti busters programm we started 10 years ago is anationaol model. The light rail ... Phoenix reallg hammered that through.
I thinl having Arizona State Universityg downtown will bring long term importance to The spark for the biomedical campues came from the cityof Phoenix. We’rse still not a leader in biomedicalbut we’v got a lot of growth potential. We’ve got pretty good streets compare to Los Angeles and Washingtonand Chicago. The physicakl part of Phoenix workspretty good, too. Customer servicer is another achievement. We take a citizen surveg every two years and evert time we get a littl ebit better, but we need to alwayx be improving. We’re developing our information systemes and Internet technologyand that’s very importanty for young people.
Their whole lives are spent on computersand phones. Our Web site has won but we still need todo better. We’re doing simple building permits on the Web and we hope to do morecomplex ones. The effects of the recessio n have hurt areas ofthe city. We have high risess that are vacant and othere projects thatare stalled. Do you regrer that the city approved so many projects at the height of thebusiness cycle? Basically private properthy is private property. People have constitutiona rights. As for the high I think that’s a solid trend.
Those high rises will fill up and be But again, if people have private propertt and get financing, who are we to say to the private sector, “You’ve got this Has the city done enough to attracr corporate headquarters and the jobs that come with that Attracting corporate headquarters and new business is a real We had strong, locally based banks, but they were acquire by larger banks that weren’t baseed here. People who worked for those banks got involvedx in the community and then they were rotated toothetr locations. It’s been hard building (that corporatd base).
Given the problems with the Nationap Hockey LeaguePhoenix Coyotes, which moved the team to are you sorry you didn’t find a way to keep them downtown? Since sports teams can create synergy, do you regret that the city didn’f make a stronger play to build a stadium for the Arizon Cardinals that would enhance Chase Field and U.S. Airwayd Arena? We had the National Hockey Leagure in downtown but they wanted theirown arena. We didn’rt have the money to do that. Glendale gave them a fabulousd deal and stolethem away. The city did not have the tax resourcesa tokeep them. We’d love to stillp have hockey.
With the Cardinals, we put togetherf a proposal for (Bill) Bidwell (owner of the Cardinals), and it was one I was told was as good as But ours had alimitede site. Still it couldx have absolutely worked. We did all we coulx do to get the NFL. We even purchased the land ... the Bidwells liked a big suburban model. We’re very sorry we lost But that land we bought is now where the biotech campus is now. Any words of advice to your successor? We’ve got to keep connectingy withthe citizens. When you become a big city you tend to forge t aboutthe neighborhoods. So the city should striv e to make neighborhoods bette and do everything it can topreventf blight.
South Phoenix was a center of crimwe and blight and the city and community worked togetherf to improvethat There’s still poverty and crime but it has really gottenj better. Now we have a major focuds on the west side called WestSide Revitalization. That will be one of the majorf challenges that will face the nextcity What’s on tap after your last day? I have no plans. Peopler recruit me all the time, but I haven’t applies for anything. I may do a littl traveling and volunteer.