Progress magazine
cover story
City Manager George Britton discusses Modesto’s challenges and opportunities
By Heidi Howell
Modesto’s
recently appointed City Manager, George Britton, who took the reins in
March, has much to offer our business community and residents. He’s
worked in various-sized communities and brings diverse professional
experience.
Britton’s graduate degree is in public management.
“I went to a university and actually wanted to do this for my
professional life,” he explains. “It’s been both a vocation and a love.”
Britton says Modesto is vibrant and has a strong sense of
community. He sees one of his roles as a key partner with the City
Council to help them achieve their goals and policies. In the process,
he hopes to be viewed as “open, accessible and participative.”
While
Britton observes that no single leadership style integrates well into
city government, he characterizes his style as collaborative — although
“sometimes it’s best to be a good follower, too,” he says. “There are a
lot of smart, caring people represented who need to be taken seriously.
Here, they have a chance to be heard.”
Before Britton was
appointed to the city manager post, he spent a number of years as deputy
city manager, where he gained a high degree of familiarity with the
concerns of the Modesto business community.
Taking on the big issues
Major
issues for Modesto include bringing budget expenditures into balance
with revenue, and maintenance and development of the community’s
infrastructure to support continued growth — including air quality and
roads.
“The city plays an appropriate role in creating true
quality of life and quality of community,” Britton says. “The challenge
is determining what the acceptable equity is.”
Regarding the
city’s $10 million deficit, he notes, “The city in the long term is
spending more than it’s collecting. Fortunately, through prudent
management, we’ve had some savings, but we’re spending down our savings.
You can’t do that a long time. It’s a function of the terrible
financial condition that the State of California finds itself in:
finding funds through taking funds from local governments,” Britton
says.
“Modesto is becoming a more mature community. It used to
be that Modesto was the ‘only game in town’ when it came to activities
such as shopping at superstores and purchasing vehicles,” he says. “But
now that other cities in Stanislaus County are offering a wide range of
services, dollars are flowing elsewhere.”
Expansion and revenue
To
encourage business growth and assist in generating revenue, the city
can supply a framework, Britton says. “Local government provides an
infrastructure. Businesses provide the capital investment, growth and
entrepreneurial activity. We can provide stable government, community
services and jobs. We can get out of the way and not be an impediment to
reasonable business development, which means long-term quality
opportunities for the community.”
Britton observes that among
other things, “We’re experiencing very robust arts, entertainment and
tourism industries here,” he says. “Consider how many startups we’re
having in restaurants and entertainment in comparison to most cities.
It’s really extraordinary. This has given us a much more heterogeneous
Modesto business community. We’re not the same two- or three-industry
town that was here when I grew up.”
A healthy employment
environment is also essential. Growing and maintaining a corporate
professional and technically skilled workforce are important for
Modesto’s continued success, Britton explains. He says having a
knowledgeable and constantly learning workforce will be a challenge, as
will retaining the constituents who now drive to the Bay Area for better
salaries.
Setting priorities
With so many issues to
address, what’s next on the agenda for Modesto? “The short-term goal is
obviously to get our revenues and expenditures in equilibrium and arrive
at a balanced budget,” Britton says. “The intermediate goals include
making sure that the city, based on the leadership of the mayor and City
Council, is investing in effective energy and resources.”
Britton
points out, “Being essentially a bureaucracy, it’s up to us to make the
difference, to make sure we’re part of where the community wants to go,
and provide the tools for elected officials to do their parts,” he
notes.
“What is bringing the budget to a balance going to mean?”
he asks. “We’re going to try to reduce it in a way that the effects to
the general community are as minor as possible. We’ll look at those
areas where hopefully we can make reductions and balances where they
benefit people.”
Britton continues, “In the long run, a healthy
city government means that it can be a pattern in an economy delivering
business and employment development. Businesspeople who make business
development decisions want to understand what the world is going to look
like and see that the government is capable of producing measured
services and taxes and fees. There is less uncertainty in areas where
the local government is financially stable and expenditures and revenue
are aligned.”
Making a difference
Although change can
take time, George Britton is upbeat and positive as he looks ahead. In
his tenure as city manager, he would like to “move the community’s
quality of life one notch higher,” he says. “I hope to help the
community to become a bit better place to live and work than ‘before
George was here.’ It’s not a brass plaque on a building, it’s a sense
that the quality of the community has moved to a better level,” he says.
“I
enjoy want I’m doing and I enjoy this community. I truly have come
home. I’m committed to making this a better community and I ask that
people feel comfortable sharing their views with the leadership, the
rest of the community, the mayor and the City Council. Our goal is to
facilitate that process,” Britton says. “Certainly in the end, I’m here
to help implement the vision of the mayor and City Council — and add
value where I can.”
Chamber member Heidi Howell is a Modesto
copywriter with more than 15 years’ experience creating marketing,
advertising and corporate text for local and national clients.
© HHWS for Modesto Chamber of Commerce
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