City Manager, planning and project management

[Steve]

I'll go one step further.... Cafe is one of several of the best and brightest planners who have left a City Hall where decision making is increasingly dominated by engineers.

[Pete]

I'll go one step further.... Cafe is one of several of the best and brightest planners who have left a City Hall where decision making is increasingly dominated by engineers.

Quite possibly the biggest issue facing the future of urban OKC, and one that gets little attention.

[Spartan]

I've also been repeating this line several times, including in front of the horseshoe...

[HangryHippo]

Who is responsible for this shift? Is it the city planner, someone else who makes appointments, the council, hiring managers?

[Pete]

The City Manager, Jim Couch, is an engineer and came to work for the City over 25 years ago as a Water/Wastewater Utilities Director.

He reports to the Mayor & City Council and the Planning Department -- and every other City dept. (police & fire, airports, parks, etc.) -- report to Couch.

Couch's right-hand man, Eric Wenger, was hired by the City straight out of engineering school in 1994.

[Spartan]

Don't forget Clowers, he's the one who hasn't been properly eviscerated on here. Wenger is changing and showing a lot more sensitivity toward urbanism whereas Couch will resist until he is forced to retire or...

[TechArch]

I work with engineers and they are great people, but giving them power to decide design decisions almost always comes out bad.

[Pete]

Yes, Dennis Clowers is an Asst. City Manager and is another engineer.

[HangryHippo]

Thank you very much for the detailed answer, Pete.

So Jim Couch is the one that doesn't seem to be holding the city to a higher standard on a lot of things?

[Spartan]

Absolutely Couch.

[Pete]

Couch is by far the most powerful person in OKC... Way, way more than the mayor or any of the city councilmen.

[Dubya61]

I'm sure this has already been covered, but how is Mr. Couch retained. Election? or some other process?

[Spartan]

The council reviews his employment on a rolling basis and I believe just recently extended it. It's always just a back slapping palooza anyway.

[HangryHippo]

Well, this explains a lot of things. Can't we do better when selecting a city manager?

[metro]

Couch is by far the most powerful person in OKC... Way, way more than the mayor or any of the city councilmen.

Unfortunately you're correct. The man needs to go IMO.

[Dubya61]

Do we believe that any of the council members want something better? How can he be the long pole in the tent when we elect people to carryout our desires? Maybe I'm just naive, but if the City Manager is a product of the council, the council needs to know that they're producing a product undesireable to their customers.

[Spartan]

Well, this explains a lot of things. Can't we do better when selecting a city manager?

They would most likely promote a replacement from within anyway but we can definitely do better. OKC can be the best middle tier city in the world with one of the most innovative city managers out there if it wanted to.

[Steve]

Couch is a good man - someone I respect, and I didn't intend to imply otherwise. Policy is still set by the city council. Couch takes his directions from the council. If they wanted a better balance between engineering and planning, they could make that happen pretty quickly.

[Pete]

Couch is very well-liked and highly regarded by most of the current City Council and the mayor.

He's very politically astute.


Apart from the planning piece, there are serious issues in the way projects are budgeted, managed and reported. We keep going way over budget and way under-delivering what was promised.

In watching City Council and other meetings, I've been very disturbed by how Couch presents information and responds to direct questions.

[Dubya61]

Pete, if it's something that can be discussed here, what do you think motivates Mr. Couch? Is it simply job preservation? Does he aspire to what Spartan would consider mediocrity? Is there a bigger picture here? Do you think he believe's he's happy being the power behind the throne?
I can see that there is some difference of opinion from people whose opinions i respect, and I'm not trying to incite anybody here or start a hate-fest. I am genuinely ignorant of the specifics. Can you elaborate in a manner suitable for this media?

[HangryHippo]

The problem is there are often a lot of people that are otherwise good men that aren't good at what they do, and Couch seems to be one of them. The things that Pete mentions about planning, budgeting, managing, reporting and continuous under-delivery of what is promised are problems that have continued to plague our city for quite some time. If a better city manager can stem the rising tide of planning disappointments in this city, then someone (Couch) needs to answer for the continued letdowns and disappointments.

Is Couch responsible for the cluster that is our airport? Did any of the work on that microcosm of poor planning go through him or his office?

[Pete]

I think Couch is in way over his head and also is trying to only deliver good news.

So, things get way out of hand early in these projects (due to lack of expertise and oversight) and then rather than just being upfront, key information is held until it's too late for much intervention, and presented in a way that is extremely manipulative. As an example, TIF revenue shortfalls are continually used as an excuse for the massive cut-backs on P180, yet in total there is more money available for that project than originally budgeted.

All this should also be laid at the feet of the mayor and City Council. It is their job to ride herd on these things yet -- apart from Shadid -- they allow all this to happen.


In completely fairness to Mr. Couch, he has a very tough job and there is no doubt his staff is spread too thin. But he should be honest about this and make sure he has the resources he needs to get the job done.

[adaniel]

What's the possibility that numbers and budgets the city runs on large projects can start being put together by outside consultants?

[Pete]

They use outside consultants to help with the budgeting and planning. In fact, when there was a TIF shortfall for Project 180, it was the outside consultants that were thrown under the bus.

I challenge anyone -- including City Council -- to track the budgets on these projects. It's impossible because they constantly change the budgets as the projects proceed.

When a change order is presented to Council for approval, they always state "we have the money budgeted". But what they don't say is that cumulatively they are way over budget and there are lots of other things that were part of the plan that will not have funding due to such changes.


They need to implement a standard report against budget, and then re-forecast as needed -- and report against that as well. I've never, ever seen big dollar projects managed without this yet it's either not done by the City or they don't share those numbers with Council or the public.

They also need to have a process of reviewing and making changes to their procedures as they run up against these overages. But since they never report against the original budget and don't seem to take any responsibility for the over-runs, how can anything ever change??

[Pete]

BTW, notice how Devon Tower came in on time and on budget?

That project was every bit as big and complex as Project 180 or anything from MAPS but it was professionally managed by people who knew what they were doing and knew how to report as they went along.

There were lots of adjustments of course, but they still met their goals because they communicated back to Devon and they worked together. What they didn't do is wait until half the building was half built and 90% of the budget had been already spent and then tell them there were problems.

I've seen some of the reports Hines used and they are incredibly detailed but also do a great job of explaining any variances.