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The city council elections are over, and now, as chief of staff to Mayor Jamie Wiliams, you need to turn your attention to the next two years — the last two years. The city charter prohibits the mayor of Zenith City from seeking a third four-year term. Yet Mayor Wiliams has to govern for two more years — during which time everyone will call her (although not always to her face) a lame duck.

The November elections went well enough. The pro-Wiliams faction on the council still has a working majority, although on any given issue there is always the possibility that one or several council members will defect to the infamous Brunnerstein faction. So you need to continue to pay attention to the council’s internal politics and the needs of particular members. But this is not a big challenge.

Neither are your first two assignments, which concern the annual January rituals: the state-of-the-city address on January 10, when the new city council is sworn in, and the mayor’s annual budget, which the charter requires her to submit before the end of the month. Again, however, these two tasks are not particularly challenging. You’ve done them six times already.

Your real challenge is to hold together for the next two years the administration’s team that has been so effective. And for this task, you have no model.

Indeed, the administration of Wiliams’ predecessor, Mayor Padre Angelas, crumbled during his last two years. There was no initiative, no leadership, no drive — and damn few accomplishments.

Sure, the Sanitation Department cleaned the streets, teachers taught the kids and the cops arrested crooks (or at least some of them). But the city was on autopilot. Fortunately, most of the line workers understood their day-to-day responsibilities and knew how to do them. Otherwise, the city would have stopped functioning. But during Angelas’ last two years, that’s all city government managed to do: carry out its basic functions. Fortunately, during these 24 months the city wasn’t seriously challenged. None of the city’s contracts with its unions expired, so there were no strikes. There was neither a big heat wave nor a major snowstorm. And when you and Wiliams walked in the door and discovered the deficit in the education budget, it wasn’t too taxing. During Angelas’ last two years, Zenith City lucked out.

Still, everyone knows about the problems and what caused them: Key managers left in droves. And Angelas couldn’t replace them — at least not with qualified people. The Water and Sewer Department, for example, was being run by an acting commissioner who was really the deputy assistant commissioner. It was embarrassing.

Angelas could do nothing to stop the mass exodus of talent. The reason for his lack of success was obvious: He didn’t have any kind of pitch. You know this because almost exactly eight years ago, he tried to persuade you to join his team as budget director, or economic development commissioner, or anything. But Angelas had been unable to explain to you what he was trying to accomplish, why he needed you, or what good you might do working for the city. All he could do was beg — and that wasn’t enough.

Unfortunately, people in Zenith City are now recalling those two lame-duck years. Already Danelle Shaughnessy, the chief political prognosticator for the Zenith City Tribune, has wondered in print whether the last two years of the Wiliams administration will be as bad as Angelas’. Then, yesterday, Penny Louella, the director of the city’s Public Works Department, walked into your office to announce that she had a very attractive offer from a national consulting firm.

Even your friends are asking: “When do you plan to leave?” You don’t plan to leave. You committed for the full eight years, and you will fulfill that commitment. But you know what the other members of the team have to be thinking: “When should I make my escape to the private sector?”

It’s a good team. In six years, it has accomplished a lot. Student test scores are up, and the schools now rank not at the bottom but in the middle of West Dakota’s cities. The parks commissioner has persuaded the big banks to help refurbish many of the city’s recreation facilities. And the area around the Zenith City branch of the University of West Dakota is even sporting a few high-tech start-ups.

But how can you keep all your talent in the saddle for two more years? And if you are able to persuade them to stay, how can you energize them and their agencies? After all, the political commentary is already focusing on the next election. Will Lois Pennella give up her council seat and run for mayor? Will young Petey Angelas run to redeem his family’s political legacy?

Moreover, Wiliams knows that no mayoral legacy is built in six years. It requires eight. And, quite naturally, she thinks of you as the architect of her legacy.

For Bob Behn’s approach to this month’s public management dilemma — or to post your own ideas — click here.