First impressions, as they say, are most important. Visiting dignitaries, area citizens and those who do business with the city of Grants Pass will experience first hand, Webster’s definition of the term. Manager David Frasher (pronounced Fray-sher) is most able to “produce a vivid impression” upon those he meets. His memory is uncanny, his mind is sharp and you’re immediately greeted with a keen sense of professionalism and charm. The city has good reason to be proud of him. His resume is an interesting read.

Manager Frasher is a member of ICMA, the International City/County Management Association. He is a highly professional administrator that manages the inner workings and day-to-day operations of a municipality. This, he says, frees elected officials from these time consuming tasks and empowers them to provide leadership, determine what services should be provided to the town’s people, lobby the state legislature on the community’s behalf and communicate with constituents.

REPORTER: What is your professional view of the city’s form of government?

MANAGER FRASHER: “I believe it’s very effective and I might add the staff here at City Hall is exceptional, and I say that with reference to other places where I‘ve worked. Before I came here, I did my due diligence. The Daily Courier wasn’t online at the time, and there was a lot of needed information that I just couldn’t get. So I called other city managers around the state and two or three different times, unsolicited, they said to me that the executive staff group here has a state wide reputation of excellence. I was impressed with that but when I got here I found that it was all very true.”

The Manager continued, “We have had recent turnovers in some of those positions and are trying to replace them with people who are just as good as the ones we had. So that is a bit of a challenge right now. I’ve appointed four major department heads, a new city attorney, human resources director, a finance director and a new public works director. This has been a real challenge for me as I think the city council should expect good judgment from their manager. You always have a finite amount of finances and resources to recruit talent to your organization, I know these folks have a lot of responsibility and the work they do is going to be a reflection of that, if I made a good decision to begin with. I take that really seriously because if history is any indication, these folks will be with us for a long time. If you are in these positions of authority and here for a long time, you will certainly have a big impact on the community, and I want it to be positive.”

REPORTER: May I ask why you wanted to be a city manager?

MANAGER FRASHER: “I chose this job because I didn’t want to be bored and thought I could make a difference and make the world a better place in which to live on my own little scale and feel effective doing it.”

“The City Manager is really a supporting arm to the elected officials, they set the overall policy where they want us to go and it’s up to me to see that it is executed. I think a professional manager is really an empowering agent for the elected officials to be successful. When they say these are our top priorities, somebody is going to get a report card at the end of the year on whether we did those things, and that somebody is whoever that manager is. I can’t imagine how frustrating it would be to be an elected official and not have that sort of champion person that’s going to go out and make those things happen for you.”

REPORTER: A little bit about David Frasher?

MANAGER FRASHER: “I was a practicing attorney and a member of the Alaska Bar Association. I was in law enforcement for ten years in Independence, Missouri, which included time as a homicide detective on the Metro Squad and I worked in the crime lab with CSI for about a year. I’m a hiker and I recently took up playing the guitar. I have a passion for sports cars but, gas prices had a definite effect on that. I love to spend time with my family and friends. I have family in Kansas City that come out in the summers to visit and I have a couple of nieces and nephews I like to spoil.”

REPORTER: A current hot topic for Josephine County is the possible hiring of a professional manager. Would you advocate this approach?

MANAGER FRASHER: “Absolutely. A credentialed manager, such as an ICMA member, is needed to get the county back on track. I’ve met the County Commissioners over the past few years and find they are decent people trying to do a good job. What I see is good people trapped in a failing system. I think the structure of the system is holding them back. It isn’t a lack of desire, or necessarily a lack of commitment to the community or a lack of education. It doesn’t really matter how educated you are in a system sort of designed for conflict. It appears to be a system that kind of ties your hands.”

REPORTER: What’s the answer to the county’s financial woes?

MANAGER FRASHER: “The Task Force they appointed came up with some good recommendations which were well founded. Many of the things they recommended I would agree to if I was the county’s consultant. I think one of the things that holds the county back is that every decision by the Commissioners is highly politicized. And this is not by design of the personalities we talk about; it’s the fault of the system. You can take the best possible people and put them in that system and you’ll have confusion and conflict. My staff has trouble at times with one directive. With three, as in three county commissioners, it’s practically impossible even with all being highly qualified, if such was the case. They wouldn’t know where to go or how to get there. In other words, it would be chaotic by design, and that is the situation with the county.

Let’s say the city has 22 departments and their concern is who’s going to get the lion’s share of a particular resource or who’s supposed to get what program to work with. When the County Commissioners have that discussion, it’s in front of the media often on TV and there is all of these political overtones to it that hold back sometimes a very cogent and open discussion and maybe a thoughtful argument about what should be done. The city settles that stuff here in a professional way through analysis in meetings we have at staff level, so by the time it gets to Council, those terms and details have been addressed, Council can make a decision and we move on. To me, it’s far more efficient and it’s not laced with un-necessary political overtones, which I think is what’s happening at the county level.”

The Manager added, “Giving credit to the county system, there was a time in our history where this type of commissioner form of government made sense. Due to our contemporary complexities, the service levels and technicalities involved, the nature of the decisions that have to be made and the time in which you have to make them; the expectations of voters and our “customers” in general are all so drastically different than they were 100 years ago. The system just wasn’t designed to change with all of those changing dynamics. And this is why the ICMA was founded. As within the old system, especially in larger cities, abuse and corruption flourished with the “Strong Mayor” form of government. You would have relatives of elected leaders receiving contracts and top positions in government. The corruption in American history is well documented and inspired the entire movement toward professional city managers to reduce that kind of stuff and restore some credibility to government operations.”

REPORTER: Could the current County system be reformed or repaired?

MANAGER FRASHER: “I don’t believe the current system is fixable in its current form.

Some of the suggestions by the County Task Force, such as increase the number of Commissioners to 5 or 7 or more are a good idea this makes sense from another perspective, as well. We have 9 elected officials in Grants Pass and about 34,000 citizens. The county has a population of about 82,000 and only 3 officials. So, there is much less diversity and representation. The increase of commissioners will assist with political issues too, as you have more voices to advocate the cause and explain to the constituency. During the last proposed county levy there were only 3 officials to educate the public. This was in addition to running the day to day operations. I don’t believe there is a chance of succeeding within that environment. It isn’t humanly possible.”

REPORTER: What will it take?

MANAGER FRASHER: “At least 5 commissioners and a qualified professional county manager that they are willing to empower. This could lead to a more stabilized government and in turn help our economic development efforts because any investor who is risking dollars within a community will want to know the political and operational stability of the environment in which they are investing? The county has some of these factors and yet the city is trying to attract positive investors to the community as part of our economic development initiatives, sometimes it’s challenging. The more stable our area, the more attractive we are to investors. We want to work with the county and yet I have to be careful as I don’t want to come across as all-knowing and have the magical answer. It’s going to be a difficult challenge for the County Commissioners, no matter, and I want to respect their right and the voters.”

REPORTER: How do city and county government operations compare?

MANAGER FRASHER: “Our offices are about 200 feet apart. We have access to the same talent pool, the same education system, the same tax base, many of the same land use regulations and state statutes, the same street system, water system, transportation and, the same economic development opportunities. So these two organizations have all of those things in common yet when you look at the fiscal and financial stability and the long term sustainability of operations, the difference between the two government entities is like day and night. Now, why is that? Is it just because one received “timber receipts” all of these years or some sort of windfall from a piece of legislation? That’s part of it, certainly. But, I would like to think if it had the right structure, somebody would have been thinking that this current government structure isn’t sustainable and needs to be redesigned to be less political and more professional. This would have lead to a different result because we have a very different result in the city structure.”

REPORTER: Funding the county operations is the big picture today. How should it be accomplished? Is the sales tax (a preset percentage tax charged on goods you purchase, usually exempting food, drugs and big ticket items) idea a workable one?

MANAGER FRASHER: “Sales tax would have to be small enough so you wouldn’t drive to a neighboring town for a big ticket item. Or those items would have to be, in some way, exempted. The most effective financing streams for any government are always those, as in a business, utilizing diversity. The more diversity you have within the finance structure the better off you are. A sales tax, as a principal, especially if it’s a modest amount is a good approach as far as stabilizing the system they are looking at. The difficulty with a sales tax is that it should be at least on a regional level and better yet on a state level. If you’re going to do a sales tax, the best possible scenario I think, would be a state-wide amount. Eventually, Oregon will probably be forced into it as when we compete with neighboring states, we are paying that tax. We are dealing with it. When we are not charging the same thing, we are also subsidizing our visitors, to some extent. And tourism is one of the fastest growing components of our local economy. I have family that comes in from Missouri. When we go out to eat and it’s time to pay the bill, they are dumbfounded when they don’t see a sales tax at all, even 2 or 3%. They are used to seeing that. They wouldn’t object. They do come here in big numbers in the summer and have a big impact on the service delivery. You and I are paying our share and they are not.

To rely on a straight sales tax or just a straight property tax can have social ill consequences. That’s why I think a common sense balance lies somewhere between those two funding mechanisms. It makes more sense as a matter of social policy and makes more sense from a professional business perspective.”

REPORTER: Any thoughts on Sheriff Gilbertson’s District Tax idea? (See Meet Sheriff Gilbertson in this section)

MANAGER FRASHER: “I think that may be a viable approach and I expect Grants Pass voters would be more likely to support something if they feel they are not paying twice and I think the idea of having a jail district separate from rural patrols will give people a choice. It will take an educational process but I think it will be more supportive by Grants Pass citizens. They want a safe environment and are willing to pay for it.”

REPORTER: You have been a resident of Grants Pass and Josephine County for over two years now. What do you have to say about our corner of the world?

MANAGER FRASHER: “I love it…..its people…..the natural beauty and ‘It’s The Climate.’”

You may reach the Grants Pass City Manager: David Frasher, City Manager

101 NW A Street, Grants Pass, OR 97526.

Tel: (541) 474-6360 Email: dfrasher@grantspassoregon.gov -Mike Case