4 questions for Charlotte’s new city manager
Charlotte introduced its new city manager, Marcus Jones, on Oct. 19. Jones finished his responsibilities in his native Virginia and began work here in the Queen City Dec. 1.
I recently had a chance to sit down with Jones and talk about his thoughts on the current and future state of the city.
You have been on the job for almost three weeks. What are your first impressions of Charlotte?
My impression after getting here is that it’s even more welcoming than I had expected. Sometimes it’s difficult to see how good you are, and how attractive you are, when you’re here, but I can tell you that whether people say it’s a big city with a small town feel or it’s welcoming or it’s innovative, I would say that Charlotte’s got it going on. I don’t know what they do in Boston or Denver or Austin, or Portland (Ore.), but I can tell you they all can learn from having an experience here. It’s genuine, and I enjoy it.
It’s been an incredible time in the history of Charlotte, from tremendous highs (a Panthers Super Bowl run) to some not-so-great moments in the national spotlight (House Bill 2, protests). What are your thoughts about the last year in Charlotte?
I always take the bigger picture perspective. If you are looking at Charlotte as a stock, if it’s a good stock, and it loses 5 percent of its value one day, you don’t go rush to sell it. Charlotte is a great stock. How did we get to where we got to in some of these instances? I call them shocks and stresses. A shock is a hurricane, an earthquake, a riot. They come to your system and you deal with them. But then there are some stresses under the surface that may have been here for five years, 10 years or 30 years. What I love about Charlotte right now is we are attempting to address both the shock and the stresses, and that’s through the Community Action Plan, it’s through community engagement. So I think that … 2016, tough year. Highs and lows. But over the long haul, Charlotte is still a great stock.
Charlotte is a city full of young professionals. What would you tell someone who was thinking of getting into public service and reaching the professional levels that you have reached?
How do we pitch government as a great career? Public service is all I have ever done. I don’t know anybody who works with me at this level who doesn’t put in 12, 13, 14 hours a day. We feel like if we left at 5 (p.m.) we did something wrong, even though we put 8 hours in. We (those already in public service) have to be the biggest advocates for public service. We have to start them off very early. We have to catch this talent very early, 14 or 15 years old when they start working, make them fall in love with public service. Be a law enforcement officer, be a lawyer. … Everybody wants a safe, healthy, inclusive community and in government/public service, we play a big role in that.
What does the future hold for Charlotte?
There was a study about three years ago that said by 2050, 70-75 percent of the world’s population will be living in cities. By 2050 we’re going to have winners and losers. The winners are going to be those cities that decide to find a way to build their cities such that they can attract, maintain and retain their talent. When I look at Charlotte, we’re there, we’re poised to be a magnet. When I had a bunch of my department heads together and I asked, “Who are we?” the ones (answers) I really like are, Charlotte is home, resilient, and innovative. We as a community of 830,000 people should decide what the future of Charlotte is. The future is bright because we are having the conversations that other cities are shying away from. I do know that as we resolve these tough, tough issues, people are going to come here and ask us, “How did we do it?” So as long as we’re engaged in the community and we have a table that’s inclusive, that we’re taking everybody’s ideas and concepts into account, then we’re going to come up with a plan that dictates who we will be in the future.
Photo: John D. Simmons/Charlotte Observer
This story was originally published December 19, 2016 at 8:00 PM with the headline "4 questions for Charlotte’s new city manager."