Bill Watkins: A job well done | From the Roundtable

That headline sums up the recently concluded five-year performance of Bill Watkins in the hot-bird seat as Columbia’s city manager.
It wasn’t too many months ago that most of us in the business community as well as the community at large were stunned by his decision to retire and the relatively short time frame provided to secure a successor.
Only some of us were aware of the city manager’s personal angst over his wife’s terminal illness as he stoically wrestled with the city’s budget while superintending ambitious projects that included the City Hall expansion and the controversy-laced high-rise parking structure.
A task self-described as herding cats, Watkins mastered his job as ringleader of municipal government under the circus tent of City Hall.
Watkins’ retirement puts the cap on nearly a quarter century of home-grown management of city affairs; his five-year term followed the record-breaking 18-year tenure of Ray Beck. None of the four remaining candidates for city manager are from Columbia. As the City Council — guided by a Pennsylvania-based “headhunter” — wrestles with choosing a successor, residents are left to ponder how well any of these outsiders will work out in the long term.
While wishing Watkins’ successor the best of luck, there are memories of several previous city managers who arrived here as outsiders and just didn’t work out. After they left under their own volition or were asked to take a powder, the Council then tossed Beck into this cauldron of management fire. He was the Public Works director when the Council members named him acting city manager while they searched for a successor. Eventually, in frustration, the “acting” moniker was discarded, and Beck hung around long enough — some would argue too long — to leave his indelible mark on the city.
It’s an all-consuming task to be a city manager these days. Watkins’ tenure was about the average term of service nowadays for a city manager. As CEO, Watkins successfully managed a growing metropolitan community as it wrestled with a seemingly infinite quantity of challenges.
Watkins was successful because he was a great listener, facilitator and conciliator, as well as a man of action. Implementing the community-wide Visioning program early on, Watkins and his management team took the community’s temperature to shape how City Hall would respond to its constituents. Watkins reached out to his counterparts in Boone County government and across the region as well the University of Missouri. Although he was passionate and devoted to the task, it’s not hard to fathom why Watkins was ready to retire, several tragedies in his own family not withstanding.
Our business community has been well served during the past 62 years by the council-manager form of government, but one detects undercurrents of dissent. With the rise of community activism, hundreds of entities ranging from neighborhood associations to special interest lobbies have been alerted to respond, persuade and cajole and from time to time get ugly as they make their case for whatever the chosen cause of the day happens to be.
In the din of all this noise, one prays for the calm, cool, well-reasoned and unanimous best choice by the Columbia’s City Council. The two freshly elected ward representatives will hopefully be brought up to speed in time for the best of all possible outcomes.
At the same time, let’s dismantle any thoughts of changing the system as it now stands. It’s a good vehicle for whoever gets the job, so let’s line up and give Watkins’ successor a rousing welcome.