New city manager chosen

After nearly 35 years with New Port Richey, Tom O'Neill hits the top.

By JODIE TILLMAN, Times Staff Writer
Published February 7, 2008

ADVERTISEMENT Tom O'Neill, 54, began his career with the city of New Port Richey as a laborer for $3.04 an hour.

NEW PORT RICHEY - Tom O'Neill was 20 years old when he landed his first job with the city.

His position in the public works department? Laborer. Duties? Picking up trash, patching potholes, helping carpenters. Salary? $3.04 an hour.

Nearly 35 years later, O'Neill has done something not all that common in the world of public administration: He stayed with one city and worked his way to the very top.

Tuesday, the City Council voted 5-0 to make O'Neill, 54, the permanent city manager and to start working on a contract with him.

O'Neill, who has been the public works director since 1989, had been serving as interim city manager since late last year when Scott Miller left for a position in Kansas. When he left, Miller was making nearly $110,000.

"I'm honored because I started here at the entry level," O'Neill said Wednesday. "Flattered, honored, all of those adjectives would apply."

The council originally said it would begin looking for a permanent administrator this year, and the issue was up only for discussion Tuesday night.

But no one on the council raised the possibility of looking for an outsider. Deputy Mayor Ginny Miller immediately made the motion to hire O'Neill as the city manager.

She said Wednesday she had been hearing "a collective sigh of relief" from employees and residents after O'Neill first came on.

"It was a no-brainer to try to keep him," she said. "I thought everybody would be on board, and they were."

Some council members said Wednesday they didn't see the point of spending time and money on a city manager search when city employees and residents like O'Neill so much.

As public works director, O'Neill has been involved in many of the redevelopment issues that the city is facing.

Late last year, Mayor Dan Tipton said he thought the council should put off hiring a manager until after the April elections. His and Miller's seats are up, and both of them have announced plans to seek county offices.

Wednesday, though, Tipton said he was happy that the council had moved ahead with O'Neill.

"There was no sense in delaying it," said Tipton, who first met O'Neill when they were elementary students in St. Petersburg.

"Tom has his heart and soul in the city. We don't have to worry about him running off to another city."

Hiring O'Neill was the rare thing that got John Kane, a City Hall regular who usually questions the council's decisions, to come forward with praise.

"I would feel very confident going to bed at night if Tom O'Neill were my city manager," Kane told the council Tuesday.

Loads of experience

When the council went looking for a city manager in 2004, it wanted someone with a master's degree.

By contrast, O'Neill does not have a bachelor's degree. City officials point to his other experience: He is an electrician, a certified arborist and a water and wastewater plant operator. Plus, they say, he knows how things work.

"He has a tremendous amount of what's referred to as 'institutional knowledge,'" council member Marilynn deChant said during Tuesday's meeting.

O'Neill said he got married shortly after high school, had children and started completing a number of technical programs on water and wastewater treatment. O'Neill, who is now divorced, has two grown daughters and four grandchildren.

"I still use pretty much all of what I attended school for on the job," he said.

His low-key demeanor has helped make O'Neill popular with colleagues and residents, many of whom probably know him as the guy playing pedal steel guitar, lead guitar and "a little banjo" in the local country and Southern rock band Wiley Fox.

O'Neill's 20-year tenure as public works director has been relatively light on controversy. One publicized exception in 2001 was a police inquiry into marijuana use by public works employees.

In 2001, police and the Pasco County Sheriff's Office went to the public works complex with drug-sniffing police dogs, in response to anonymous calls. The dogs found the scent of marijuana in the work areas of three of the top department officials, including O'Neill, and on six other city-owned vehicles. One worker was charged with drug possession, but no other drugs were found. O'Neill was never charged.

No longer temporary

Wednesday, O'Neill said he never dreamed of working his way up to city manager until he was named interim manager last year. But even when he was younger, his bosses praised him as a rising star in the city.

In a 1982 story in the Pasco Times, the late Nelson Vogel, then the public works director, credited O'Neill with saving the city thousands of dollars by doubling as an electrician, sewage plant operator and air conditioning repairman.

O'Neill was only 29 at the time and had become plant superintendent at the water treatment plant. Back then, he told the Times that he had thought his first job with the city was a temporary one until he "went to school to learn to fix radios and television sets."

That never happened, of course.

"Sometimes you don't plan things that way," he said then, "but one year goes by and then another, and the next thing you know ... you're almost 30."

Times researcher Carolyn Edds contributed to this report. Jodie Tillman can be reached at jtillman@sptimes.com or (727) 869-6247.

Fast facts

In other business:

- City Council awarded a nearly $4.8-million bid to build a public works complex to Bandes Construction, which had the lowest bid of seven companies.

- Mayor Dan Tipton announced the retirement of longtime City Clerk Vicki McDonald. She plans to work through Feb. 21.

[Last modified February 6, 2008, 22:05:04]