Phoenix recently appointed Jeff Barton as the new City Manager

The City of Phoenix recently appointed a new City Manager. He is Jeff Barton, he has a long background in public service, and he is the city’s first “Black” City Manager. Earlier today we spoke to Jeff Barton about his new, important role in city leadership.

“I went to school for public administration. I got my masters in public administration. My dream was always once I started working for the city 22 years ago was to excel as far as I could go, as far as the organization would allow me to..and so I finally made it to the top,” Barton said.

He continued that he’s excited about what he has an opportunity to help the city and the organization provide to residents.

Barton started his career in the audit department and within that capacity, “my job was always to help troubleshoot programs that didn’t run in the most effective manner and then when I came to budget and research, I kind of built off of that,” Barton said.

He said his career has largely surrounded helping other departments resolve issues and challenges with their programming and their funding.

His goal is, “to continue everything that the previous City Manager, my mentor, Ed Zuercher, has been doing for the past 8 years. But my goal is also to see us take flight and to run, to accelerate, and to move forward new initiatives, new plans, new procedures, new processes in areas that we haven’t and then to pick up the slack in areas where we’ve not performed the best.”

“I think our City Manager has done a fabulous job…Ed is a man of charisma, Ed is also a man of integrity and I like to pride myself off of also being a person of integrity and also being transparent,” Barton said.

A big part of his focus for change is public safety. He wants his team to be involved and collaborate with the Department of Justice to reach a Department of Public Safety that meets the needs of the community.