Greg Caton. Photo Credit: Arizona Digital Free Press
It’s a time of change in Scottsdale. Most everyone knows of our new mayor and knows that there will be some new city councilmembers in the council dais this year. But many people don’t realize that it’s the city manager that calls most of the shots regarding how the city is managed.
In the wake of Jim Thompson’s exit from the Scottsdale City Manager role, Bill Murphy had stepped into the role as interim City Manager as a stopgap to ensure continuity. But the city now has a new interim: Assistant City Manager Greg Caton will be promoted to the City Manager position on an interim basis.
Greg is relatively new to the city, having been hired on as Assistant City Manager last February; he came over from Grand Junction, Colorado where he served as City Manager for eight years. In this role he was tasked with overseeing Water, Communications and Citizen Service, Human Resources, management associates, and management intern/fellow.
Greg isn’t a total stranger to Arizona; he was once City Manager for Oro Valley, AZ. But this hiring offers up a unique idiosyncrasy: an apparently tight relationship with Colorado. As a reminder, previous City Manager Jim Thompson has Colorado roots and resigned to take a managerial role in Colorado. Perhaps the needs of western cities overlap significantly to the point where the learning curve isn’t too steep.
So what should you expect? Perhaps a mirroring of the desires of the new iteration of City Hall. As an “outsider insider” he will be called upon to implement reforms. The electorate voted for change, and it will be Caton’s job to bring that to life while not materially disrupting day-to-day life and while maintaining our incredibly high quality of life.
In a sea of relative uncertainties regarding how the city is led in the aftermath of a somewhat contentious election, there is at least one piece of calm continuance, and that’s unequivocally a positive.