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The city manager, who fought for and won a new contract with a hefty raise from a bitterly divided council last year – after a series of more than a half-dozen closed door evaluation sessions – is now looking to cactus country for a new home base. 

Jim Keene says he’s not thinking of going to Tucson to get away from the heat of Berkeley battles, but to take advantage of the challenge it presents. 

“It’s a growing city, with a rich cultural and arts life,” he said, noting that although he’s been recruited for a number of posts, this is the first city in which he’s decided to seriously interview. Tucson’s one of the fastest growing cities in the United States, with an estimated population of 483,000, more than four times bigger than Berkeley. 

“There are a lot of different kinds of people in Tucson,” Keene said, listing another advantage. 

In 1997, 63,7 percent of the city was white, non-Hispanic; 28.7 percent was Hispanic; 3.5 percent was Native American; 2.4 percent was Asian or Pacific as other, according to statistics on the city’s web site. 

Noting that his wife does contracting in Tucson for a health agency she once worked for, he said it would be a good place for his family. 

“We have lots of friends and contacts (there),” he said. 

Keene was city manager in Coconino County in northern Arizona for five years. 

Keene underscored that even though he’s tossed his name in the hat, he won’t really know if he wants the job until he’s met directly with the Tucson mayor and council on Thursday. 

The previous city manager, retiring after four years on the job and 28 years with Tucson, earned $130,000. Keene’s salary is $154,000 in Berkeley. He says the Tucson salary is open to negotiation. 

Keene said he’s not ruling out investigating other cities but declined to talk about which ones he might be considering. 

Staunch Keene supporter Mayor Shirley Dean hopes she can convince the manager to stay. 

“I think it would be a great loss for Berkeley,” Dean said, in a telephone interview from Albuquerque, N.M., where she is attending a conference on the “digital divide.” 

Dean praised the city manager for putting a two-year budget process in place and introducing a system of tracking the budget’s “measurable outcomes.” 

Some in the community have blamed Keene for the 170-foot Public Safety Building communications tower that its neighbors hate. But Dean said the tower was adequately described in environmental documents and that everyone, including herself, the council and the neighbors should have realized it was coming. 

“We were all to blame,” the mayor said. 

A draft general plan is being revised because of an outcry from the public, but Dean says the reason it had to be redone – a yearlong and expensive process – is because of the sharp divisions in the community on the subject of development. 

“Don’t lay this all on the city manager’s door,” the mayor said. 

Councilmember Kriss Worthington, probably Keene’s most outspoken detractor on the council, doesn’t hide the fact that he’d shed no tears if Keene got the job in Tucson. 

Worthington, who’s most recently clashed with Keene on the question of the city subsidizing a parking garage on Fourth Street, said he’s not asking for a city manager who will agree with him on every issue. 

“Just someone who’s balanced, who doesn’t go against me on every issue,” Worthington said. 

Worthington says he would like to work with a manager who readily shares information. For example, he said he has been unable to get a copy of the manager’s neighborhood liaison plan, staffing for which Berkeley city administrators are currently competing. 

Tucson Personnel Director Jack Redavid said the recruiting firm, DMG Maximus of Los Angeles narrowed a field of 40 candidates to five, including Keene. 

On Thursday morning, the Tucson mayor and council will interview the five candidates, one at a time. Then the candidates will be interviewed that afternoon by a citizens’ panel. 

On Friday, the panel will give its feedback to the mayor and council. The decision could come soon thereafter, or the city could decide to talk to one or more of the candidates again, Redavid said. 

They also could decide that none of the candidates are suitable and ask the recruiting company to start all over again. 

Tucson is much larger than Berkeley, with an $820 million budget. Berkeley’s is about one-quarter of that. 

The county in which Tucson is located has 2.9 percent unemployment. In 1990 the median household income was about $31,000. In April the median home price was $126,000. A two-bedroom apartment rents for $636. 

Also in the running for the post is Benny J. Young, Tucson’s assistant city manager since 1996. Young headed the transportation department before that. 

Other candidates are Alan E. Tandy, city manager of Bakersfield since 1992; Juan Garza, city manager in Corpus Christi, Texas, for eight years, before working as an independent consultant; and Edward Beasley, III, assistant city manager in Glendale, Ariz. 

If he gets the post, Keene will not walk into unfamiliar territory. The council recently passed a living wage ordinance – minimum $8 per hour – and trailed California by just passing a ban on smoking in restaurants which will go into effect in October. 

He might trade the parking garage battles for fights between developers and those who want to protect the desert. As in Berkeley, there’s a strong and active preservationist community that sometimes clashes with developers. 

There are no contract constraints for the city manager in Berkeley, who can leave his post at any time.