Page 143 - CSD - PUD 02 28 19

Jeff Eder

Tuesday, February 12, 2019
2:37 PM
1. What drives you to seek this position? Tell me a bit about what you know about the City and the
fit you see with your interests.
I read the job description, thought this was an interesting position. I reached out to him. An
interesting community to me. With my background I felt that I should explore it a little more. I am
between jobs. I am actively looking for opportunities.
East Peoria they use the commission form of government, each one of them has a hiring and firing
ability. The individual commissioners wanted to run the departments without a centralized
administrator. We had a really amicable parting of ways. Uses the mayor and references.
2. Please describe your most recent position and day-to-day responsibilities.

As City Administrator I was the top person at the staff level - had all the department heads
report to me. Under Public Works we do have a water and wastewater division, treat our
own sewage.

3. How many employees do you supervise? Who do you report to?

City population was 22,000. Had 9 Direct reports, 200 staff members. I reported to the
Board - had five bosses. Was the highest up of the City staff.

Central Illinois is where Caterpillar is at.

4. Please describe your experience in public sector executive management and leadership.

East Peoria - where I was the top staff person. Previous to that I was with Rock Island - that was a
community of about 40,000. I was the community development director there and also the
Assistant City Manager. We had 20 staff members, planning, zoning, PBCE. As an aside I worked
with other departments for the City Manager. For about six weeks ran the Public Works
department, worked closely with City Manager and Council.

Previous to that I was with the Chicago suburb - I was the community development director. There
was no manager there - it was reporting directly to the Mayor, so I'm very familiar with politics
and that sort of thing.

5. This position requires staff to work between multiple divisions of the Department and multiple
City departments. How would you enable your organization to deliver an increasingly cohesive
customer experience internally, including clarity, timeliness, and responsiveness?

That's always a key question - is getting people to work together. You have to get people to
understand how people's role fits into the bigger picture. I like to get a few employees to work
together, get them to know each other, get them to function. I know one of the big issues here is
water billing and meter reading. Getting to know how the two interact. In East Peoria we had one
of the office managers see what was happening in the field with the radio reads, and that helped
develop communication between departments, they became familiar with each other.