“The City will Miss John Dunn”
April 2000
 

In 1987 John was among the finalists for the City Administration Officer position. City Department Heads were invited to spend an evening with the candidates and share their observations with the City Council and the selection committee. As Public Works Director, my clear choice by the end of the evening was Jon, a conclusion reached by almost all of the other Department Heads as well. After 13 years of John’s leadership, that choice had proven to be an outstanding one for the City. With John’s approaching retirement, I would like to share with you some of my thoughts regarding the CAO job, John’s accomplishments, and our unusual relationship.

Under the type of governance specified in our City Charter, the City Council makes the policy decisions and the CAO administers those decisions with the aids of the city staff. It’s never quite that simple though. There are many times when the line between policy and administration is blurred. In those cases the CAO must often tread a fine line between the conflicting wished of the five members of the City Council, most of whom harbor definite feelings about the direction that the City should follow. Over the years John has been masterful in arriving at recommendations which are practical and fairly incorporate the wishes of the Council majority. Since Councils change every few years and new (and very strong) personalities are introduces, this becomes a never ending balancing act. Most City Administrators and City Managers eventually find themselves at odds with their governing bodies and move on. John has handled this so skillfully, that his is by far the senior CAO (in terms of service) in the County.

Besides his skill at dealing with the Councilmembers, John deals directly with 12 department heads and less directly with the remaining employees of the City. Since John had been CAO there had been a complete turnover in department heads. Due to his careful approach, the City has hired outstanding replacements for most of those key positions. The CAO sets the tone and is the key voice in financial, morale, working conditions, and all other personnel decisions, resulting in generally excellent employee relationships in our city over the years.

Many positive steps have taken place during John’s watch, both within City government and within the community. The City budget process reflects goals painstakingly reviewed, refined and finally adopted by the City Council thereby reflecting the consensus views of the community.

The City adopts 2 year budgets and 4 year capital Improvement budgets based on these adopted Goals: This is an arduous process for staff and thr City Council, however the city had won National Awards many times for the final product. I know of no other City which has such an innovative and comprehensive budgeting approach as does SLO.

The very detailed and complete land use planning process followed in SLO had been developed under John’s leadership to allow full expression of strongly held views by the various interests in our community. With such through review, projects move through the process very slowly, however, I believe most will agree that SLO had developed into a very fine community.

John can point with pride to the many projects both civic and private which have been developed in SLO during the past 13 years. I believe his proudest achievement is the absolutely key role his has played with the Performing Acts Center. He was able to find city funds for our share when they were critical for the project to move ahead, and continued to play an active role (often as chair) of the various committees and commissions that oversaw construction, recruited staff, set up policies for center operations, and continues with current funding, maintenance and improvement needs. Everyone who uses the PHC should thank John for his dedication and ability on this project.

Shortly after John took over his duties as CAO, we discovered mutual interests in backpacking, camping, and photography. He also became interested in a couple of my favorite activities, white water rafting and snow skiing. Over the years we have shared many many good times together. We also can tell a number of "memorable experience" stories about each other — all a part of a good and longtime friendship.