Photo courtesy of city of Hoover.
Hoover City Administrator Brian Muenger.
Hoover City Administrator Brian Muenger.
Brian Muenger is coming into his new job as Hoover’s city administrator at a time of significant change.
There’s a new mayor in place, a new police chief, a new city engineer, three new city council members and a search for a new chief financial officer under way, and the new administration is pushing to revitalize a city that Mayor Nick Derzis said had gotten tired.
Muenger has the record of results and depth of experience that make him a good fit to manage change and the day-to-day operations of the city, Derzis said.
He comes to Hoover after having spent 10 years as the city manager for Pell City, where he oversaw more than 230 employees and a $40 million operating budget, guided the city through more than $35 million in capital improvements without issuing long-term debt and strengthened the city’s financial position.
Before that, Muenger served more than six years in Talladega, including almost five years as city manager and about a year and a half as assistant city manager.
Muenger’s background includes comprehensive planning, organizational leadership, commercial development, grant administration, and long-term capital and financial planning.
“Brian brings a level of experience, professionalism and steady leadership that will immediately strengthen our operations,” Derzis said. “He has a proven track record of solving complex challenges, managing growth responsibly and delivering results that matter to residents. Adding someone of Brian’s caliber is another major step in putting the right team in place to advance and implement the priorities of my administration. I’m excited to welcome him to Hoover, and I have full confidence in his ability to help guide our city forward.”
EARLY EXPERIENCE
Muenger originally is from Louisville, Georgia, a small town in Jefferson County, Georgia, near Augusta. He went to Georgia College and State University and obtained a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and political science and a master’s degree in public administration.
At first, he planned to get a job with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, but there were a lot of hiring freezes going on at the time in the federal government. One of his professors who was a retired city manager suggested he think about city administration and connected him with internships in local governments.
“I really did enjoy what they were doing,” Muenger said. “It’s very dynamic work. You really never have any two days, working with a city, that are the same. Monotony is not a problem. It’s also very meaningful work to get to really make a difference.”
As he approached graduation, he got a job as a community development planner with the Heart of Georgia Regional Commission, which covers a 17-county region in south Georgia. He helped about 70 municipalities with comprehensive plans, hazard mitigation planning, community development block grants and federal grants for fire departments.
He enjoyed the work but decided he wanted a job where he could focus on one city and put all the pieces together for that city instead of having quick-hit jobs for brief periods of time in a multitude of cities.
He was hired as an assistant city manager in Talladega in 2008 and moved to Alabama. It gave him an opportunity to work under a city manager who had been in that type of role for more than 25 years and learn from him, he said.
Jon Anderson
Hoover City Administrator Brian Muenger, right, meets with Chief Operating Officer Blake Miller
Hoover City Administrator Brian Muenger, at right, meets with Chief Operating Officer Blake Miller and Strategic Anlayst Mindy Wyatt in his office at Hoover City Hall on Feb. 17. A myriad of ongoing projects is displayed on the bulletin board on the wall.
After almost two years, his mentor returned to Michigan, and Muenger was hired as city manager for Talladega. He did that for almost five years.
Talladega had some significant financial hardships at the time due to the recession, and tax revenues were very volatile, Muenger said.
“It was a really challenging experience because we did have to really reign in the budget,” Muenger said. “We had to furlough some employees. We had to roll back some services.”
Eventually, he and elected city leaders were able to get the city on sound financial footing, get their pension plan properly funded and establish a capital plan, he said.
The city also was under a consent decree for its sewer system, and while he was there, the city was able to get the sewer and water systems up to standards regarding infiltration, leak eradication, sewer mapping and PCBs in the water system, he said.
He also helped the city establish a grant process to restore historic buildings and worked with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to clean up brownfield textile mill sites and make them suitable for use again.
PELL CITY WORK
In 2015, he was asked to apply for the city manager job in Pell City, and he served in that role for 10 years.
In Pell City, he helped city leaders navigate compliance issues with their water and sewer departments and address funding shortfalls. The city was having to subsidize utilities with several million dollars each year because rates were not high enough to cover costs, he said. He proposed a rate structure to increase rates gradually over time, he said.
The city also revisited its fees for home builders and was able to kickstart new home construction, he said. In eight years, 850 new single-family homes were built, he said.
Pell City also had not made any significant capital investments in quite some time, Muenger said. He worked with elected officials to resurrect some projects. They built a new municipal complex, library and splash pad and renovated the city’s primary civic center. They also began designating a certain percentage of sales tax revenues to go into a capital fund, completed $35 million worth of projects in 10.5 years and didn’t add any long-term debt, he said. In fact, the city reduced its long-term debt by 40% while he was there, he said.
Under his watch, Pell City nearly doubled its city revenues, thanks to a lot of retail recruitment and working with developers to incentivize redevelopment of properties. That included tearing down an abandoned, asbestos-filled hospital and making the property suitable for redevelopment as a 100,000-square-foot retail center, he said. Additional growth followed.
“Once you demonstrate success — once you show people that your market is strong and that people are having a good track record in their operation there — most of the work is done,” Muenger said. “People want to go where they can have success. Sometimes taking the first step is difficult.”
Pell City also was able to add recreational amenities, add a medical transport unit, expand their police department, give more money to schools and repave the majority of roads.
“It was all done in a very deliberate way, incrementally and making sure we only started things we knew we could perpetuate,” he said.
His goal has always been to present elected officials with sound, data-driven recommendations, usually after a substantial period of study, he said.
COMING TO HOOVER
Muenger said he was happy working in Pell City, but he was excited about the opportunity to work in Hoover, especially after coming to interview with the mayor.
“The vision he charted — and that I heard from the City Council, as well — was one that told me that this was an administration that was going to vote to really have very rigorous standards for performance and for improving the quality of life for the citizens of Hoover in all respects,” Muenger said.
Hoover has historically provided excellent services in many areas, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t places that need work, he said.
“A city cannot rest on its laurels,” Muenger said. “Things require reinvestment — reimagination — and that does include city assets and commercial assets that exist throughout the city.”
One of Derzis’ top priorities is to reinvigorate and redevelop the Riverchase Galleria and Patton Creek shopping centers, and that project has the potential to be a national model for reimagining a property, Muenger said.
“We have the economy here to do that. We have properties with amazing geographic locations, and the traffic counts that you have in that area of potential patrons — it is a canvas that will allow for all manner of innovation,” Muenger said.
The owners there also recognize the need to find the best way to utilize that area, he said.
Muenger said he has enjoyed getting to know so many city employees and looks forward to more of that. The city has a lot of very well-qualified employees and high-performing departments, and he looks forward to working with them to make things even better, he said.
“The most attractive thing by far for me about working for the city of Hoover is that this administration has set out very clearly a desire to be the absolute best that we can be,” Muenger said. “When you’re already delivering an excellent level of service, it’s fine to recognize that and also say we want to continue to do the most that we can. That should be the default for all public servants — to provide the best service that we can for the citizens.”
