Royal Oak City Manager Tom Hoover has a split personality. Not really, but he exhibits a warmth during private conversation which doesn’t show through his restrained demeanor when he is sitting at the commission table. He displayed both personalities during our coffee conversation at Hagelstein’s. Examples:  

• When I repeated my frequent charge that citizens and commissioners too often ask stupid questions, Hoover chuckled that he practices and instructs Staff, “Even stupid questions demand intelligent answers.”
• About encounters of Staff with Commissioners: “Although the city charter specifies that commissioners must go through the city manager before communicating with Staff,” that restriction isn’t’ always practicable in the real world. However, “Staff is instructed to inform me if there has been communication with a Commissioner, whether initiated by the Commissioner or by Staff.”
• He had walked to Hagelstein’s from city hall and as we poured our coffee commented that his wife’s great cooking makes it necessary “for me to exercise every chance I get.”

Hoover has been Royal Oak’s City Manager since August 2004, about 14 months. He has returned to his Midwestern roots after spending years in New England. A native of Toledo, he has family in the Toledo area, Cincinnati, and Fort Wayne, Ind. Hoover has actually worked in the trenches. On his way to Royal Oak, he worked as a municipal engineer the first 11 years of his better than 39-year career. That was working for the City of Toledo, Ohio. Hoover ’s undergraduate degree is in Civil Engineering and he is a licensed civil engineer in the State of Ohio. He later received a Masters Degree in Public Administration. After college and taking a leave of absence from the City of Toledo, he was commissioned to serve nearly three years in the Army in Germany as an Officer in the Corps of Engineers. After spending 27 years in various City of Toledo administrative positions, with his last 4 years being Toledo’s City Manager, he was City Manager in Worcester, Mass. for over 10 years. (The average stay of a City Manager in any one city is 5 or 6 years.)

The 58-year old Tom is married to Diane. Between them they have seven children (5 boys and 2 girls).  With 5 out of seven of their children married, the Hoover’s enjoy 6 grandchildren (4 boys and 2 girls).

• Police and Fire “have suffered” from the multi-year attrition. He ticked off such affected services as investigative work and dedicated patrols in the police department, and fire inspection and fire prevention in the fire department. The Public Service Department and other City offices have similarly suffered by the loss of personnel.
• Because every citizen doesn’t require every city service, much of the loss of services remains “invisible” to the general public.

How was Hoover accepted by the Staff when he first arrived?
”The more astute department heads and the unions had done their research. They pretty much knew who I was before I arrived. Inevitably, there was some apprehension which had to be overcome. For me it was easier – and I’m not blowing smoke here – but I inherited a good staff. The departments are run very well.”

Every two weeks, usually just after each City Commission meeting, Hoover holds a 30-45-minute meeting with department heads. He summarizes the Commission meeting, addresses ongoing agenda items, asks for input from Staff. A real benefit of the staff meetings is that “The department heads are all in the room at the same time; many have little occasion to see each other, and they network before and after these meetings. I deliberately arrive late, so they have time together without my being there.”

Hoover operates with an open door policy, extending it to being “available 24/7.” He lists his home telephone number and operationally gives out his cell phone number, which “no one has abused.”

We turned to Hoover’s relationship with the City Commission.
”There is, always, a gray area between policy and administration.” Hoover says that the Council/City Manager format of government differs around the country in terms of how much authority the manager has. Here in Royal Oak the picture can be distorted somewhat by what the public sees during televised commission meetings, because televised commission meetings, around the country, “have changed the atmosphere.” When I reminded Hoover of VersagiVoice’s frequent complaint that some Commissioners are micromanaging, part of his reply was that it is understandable that elected officials may “work the camera a bit,” that “camera time and sound bites” are now a part of the political universe.

Therefore, Hoover’s advice to the public is, “Don’t take TV seriously," when it seems that there is personal contention. I had mentioned several specific exchanges between him and Commissioners and among the Commissioners, and he maintains it would be a mistake to characterize those as personal attacks. “On those rare occasions . . . the mayor can bring the meeting under control.” Although he agrees that Commission meetings, overall, would be shorter and more productive if they weren’t televised, Hoover says the pluses outweigh the minuses in terms of serving the public.

For a City Manager, things are tougher in New England. There, he had annual performance evaluations – on television – during which each council member had ten minutes to have at the city manager. “Yes, the meetings got contentious, but the rules gave me the last word, without a time limit . . . !”