Excellent Qualifications

The City Council last week filled the most important position in our city — the city manager.

The city manager is the CEO of the city government. Make no mistake about the power of this post. It’s big. State law even bars a council member from communicating directly with a city employee without first going through the city manager. Elected officials who violate that law can be subject to removal after a hearing initiated by the city manager! (That set-up is to prevent meddling by politicians in city operations.)

The city council is meant to act like a Board of Directors, setting policy and monitoring the performance of the city manager, who also has broad power to hire and fire employees. Of course, the city council has ultimate power: they can fire the city manager if they disapprove of their performance. Obviously, that’s something you never want to see happen because it means there’s been much upheaval.

Complicating all this? Less and less talented people want to make a career of these high-profile positions, where the amount of shit you get is unprecedented with the advent of social media. So this is not an easy post to fill when you have a vacancy. (Current City Manager Donna Viero is retiring at the end of the year.)

But on paper, and personal first impression, it looks like the City Council found a great candidate to hire, current Mercer County Administrator Lillian Nazzaro, who will start January 16. Nazzaro has excellent credentials, especially because of her prior career before becoming a county administrator five years ago: Nazzaro, 60, was an attorney for over 25 years.

Almost 15 of those years were spent doing legal work for Mercer County, including serving as the top attorney, before she became county administrator five years ago. As county counsel, Nazzaro dealt with everything an administrator handles, since they’re always following legal advice. Like contract negotiations, employee discriminations cases, civil rights cases, construction lawsuits, injury
lawsuits. You name it. That’s a hell of a background.

Also understand the size of the government that Nazzaro has run for five years as Mercer County administrator. (And talk about a trial by fire: the pandemic hit about one year into her tenure!) Mercer County, which includes the capital city of Trenton, has an annual budget of $380 million with 1500 employees. In comparison, Asbury Park has an annual budget of $55 million, with 247 full-time employees, 52 part-time and 227 seasonal employees. Nazzaro is obviously ready for this.

Deputy Mayor Amy Quinn noted that Nazzaro is “the first woman appointed as County Business Administrator in Mercer County history, is an accomplished professional with a proven track record and her legal experience will make her an invaluable asset to this administration. As City Manager, Lilly will oversee day-to-day operations, strategic planning, and implementation of policies to further enhance the quality of life of Asbury Park residents.”

And, on top of all that, Nazzaro lives on a farm in Mercer County where she raises and breeds alpacas with her fiancé! Quinn made a point of highlighting that, with undisguised delight, after the vote to hire Nazzaro.

Of special interest to this newspaper, of course, is how the new city manager will work to help preserve and increase our city’s status as a nationally known center for the creative, as well as the regional engine for the growth of arts and culture.

Nazzaro said that the arts and culture in Asbury Park was a big part of the attraction, along with our diversity — all of which Nazzaro said she’ll give a high-priority to promoting, just as she did in Mercer County. She noted that the Division of Culture and Heritage in the Mercer County government reported directly to her as administrator and she found that a particularly rewarding part of the position.

In fact, one of the first people Nazzaro met at the Council meeting after getting appointed was Asbury Park Arts Council (APAC) Executive Director and Board member Carrie Turner, an important arts and cultural leader in the city. The non-profit APAC is independent of the city, but acts in collaboration to broaden the reach of arts programs. The APAC, for example, has access to grants that don’t go to governments, and the group developed and wrote the Arts and Culture Plan that the city adopted as part of the master plan. That will be a guiding document for key decisions. The APAC also directly gets involved with programming, such as by assisting in public murals and public art projects. So this is an important group for promoting creativity in Asbury Park.

Nazzaro said she was excited to meet Turner at the Council meeting, and she said she’s going to start meeting with APAC after she takes over as city manager on January 16. Nazarro said she understands that the Asbury Park Arts Council is an important partner to the city.

And Nazzaro also is well aware of one of the biggest challenges facing Asbury Park — the balance between change and preservation. That’s not an easy one, and a lot of it is in the control of a force beyond the power of human beings. Specifically, the forces of economics. (Yes, that includes greed!)

Nazzaro said that when she drives around the city she’s struck by the range of homes, from old Victorians to high rises. And she understands the challenges of gentrification in how it displaces people.

“I’d like to preserve Asbury Park as much as possible,” she said. “I know gentrification is going to be an issue because of redevelopment. For me it’s really important to recognize that and balance it. So that’s going to be something that I’m going to watch closely. I want to really make sure there’s the right balance in preserving Asbury Park as well as progressing.”