ITHACA, N.Y. — City officials are still navigating a wave of turnover that hit City Hall’s top brass from various directions starting in late 2022.
The extent of turnover the city has faced over the last 18 months, particularly in leadership positions, goes beyond the garden variety personnel changes that workplaces endure.
Of the city’s 10 internal departments, seven have undergone a leadership change since October 2022. Some of those departures were department heads who worked for the city for decades, like former Director of Human Resources Schelley Michell-Nunn, former City Comptroller Steve Thayer, and former City Clerk Julie Holcomb.
During that time period, the following people in leadership positions have either departed or announced their intention to depart the city: City Clerk Julie Holcomb, Director of Human Resources Schelley Michell-Nunn, Ithaca Fire Chief Tom Parsons, Controller Steve Thayer, City Attorney Ari Lavine, Code Enforcement Director Mike Niechwiadowicz, Director of Sustainability Luis Aguirre-Torres, and Acting Police Chief John Joly and Deputy Chief Vince Monticello from the Ithaca Police Department, both longtime presences in local law enforcement.
The positions have all been filled, either permanently or temporarily, but it has signaled a true era change within City Hall.
The new faces are in addition to a Common Council that underwent sweeping changes during the last election cycle, and an overall shift in government structure generated by the conversion from a mayor-led structure to one led by a CEO-type city manager but with a mayor still in place. Deb Mohlenhoff, a longtime fixture in Ithaca’s government, was selected as the inaugural city manager and assumed office on Jan. 1, 2024.
During all this change, the city has also had three different mayors over the course of the last two years, initiated by former Mayor Svante Myrick’s surprising departure in February 2022.
The result has been a scramble to temporarily fill roles while searching for permanent replacements, all against the backdrop of a changed government structure.
“We were trying to map it out so we didn’t have all these searches happening concurrently, at the same time as the city was searching for a city manager,” Mohlenhoff said. “So yes, we knew they were all coming. Did we want them all coming at the same time? No, we had it mapped out very differently.”
Some of those departures, like Michell-Nunn, Holcomb and Thayer among others, helmed their departments for decades, accumulating an institutional memory which is slowly trickling away.
In an interview, Mohlenhoff said she sees an opportunity for beneficial shifts in the current era of change. She mentioned making the policymaking process clearer for staff as one particular benefit, which she said should improve transparency and efficiency within the city government, along with the new meeting practices implemented by Mayor Robert Cantelmo.
The overall process has been complicated by one of the key departures, Michell-Nunn, who spent over 25 years as the city’s director of human resources. The city hired Pracademic Partners, an administrator-hiring consultant firm,
Mohlenhoff said the city’s lack of a human resources director has had a two-fold impact: adding another important job to the list of empty slots to fill, while also losing one of the people who has been most instrumental in the city’s job searches during the last two-plus decades in Michell-Nunn.
Last month, the city announced that Kemi Shokunbi would be replacing Michell-Nunn. Shokunbi, who will start with the city in the coming days, was a human resources administrator for the city government in Wilmington, Delaware before her hiring in Ithaca.
Mohlenhoff acknowledged that though some administration members have announced their departures, they have been retained on a partial basis to help bridge the gap. This applies to both Thayer and former City Attorney Ari Lavine, the latter of whom has been kept in a consultant role while Victor Kessler has taken over as Acting City Attorney, interfacing directly with Common Council and running executive sessions.
While Thayer has remained involved, deputy controller Scott Andrew has also been handling acting controller duties. Additionally, the first search for Thayer’s replacement was unsuccessful, meaning his official retirement date had to be pushed back several months, Mohlenhoff said.
“It’s helpful to have some people still here to help me navigate some of the issues that are clearly going to straddle over from last year to this year,” Mohlenhoff said.
The COVID-19 pandemic also had an undeniable influence, Mohlenhoff said. While city officials were aware that several members of its senior leadership were nearing the end of their tenures in most cases, the pandemic created a different set of conditions. Some people wanted to stick around to help the city through the turbulence, perhaps others wanted to maintain a salary during uncertain financial times.
In effect, this created a glut of retirements that likely would not have happened in such rapid succession otherwise, with the effects still being felt.
“I do think the pandemic really threw off some people’s plans, and maybe that kind of skewed it a little bit in the city’s favor, honestly, as some people might have left sooner but again, it’s that dedication and commitment to all get through this together,” Mohlenhoff said. “Clearly, the change in mayor probably played a role in that as well.”
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