If you consider the first two months of Pete Pyrzenski’s tenure as Commerce city manager to be part of a “honeymoon period,” Pyrzenski is making the most of it. He’s reorganized the structure of a number of departments, trimmed positions and created others, eliminated Christmas bonuses for employees and is talking about cleaning up the town via enforcement of city codes.
Each of those moves is subject to criticism —because they represent change in the status quo — and each requires buy-in by the Commerce City Council. The questions are how much of that current buy-in is due to the honeymoon period and whether the city council will see a need to curtail some of those initiatives that may irk their constituents.
For example, there is a substantial segment of the community that wants to see it cleaned up, that wants to see property owners — commercial and/or residential — required to stabilize crumbling buildings, remove debris and maintain an orderly premises, but there is another segment that believes that what one does on his or her own property is none of the government’s business. Likewise, Pyrzenski sees more presence of police in residential neighborhoods as a good public safety and public relations initiative, but some people will see it as intimidation or harassment.
Ultimately, the citizens, through the city council, will decide how much code enforcement they want and how much police presence is appropriate, and as the public comes to recognize, understand and experience Pyrzenski’s changes, it will give feedback — both positive and negative — to the mayor and city council who will pass it along to the city manager and, if a consensus emerges, possibly rein him in.
Pyrzenski was hired to take charge of city operations, and that includes making changes where he sees the need, whether for greater efficiency of city operations, providing new services or improving the appearance of the city through code enforcement. He’s wasted no time in implementing changes — which is exactly what a new city manager would be expected to do. Some may work out well and others may not be as successful, but no one can accuse Pyrzenski of staying with the status quo.
