LR taps former Entergy manager

Jones, 61, to fill top assistant slot

Little Rock City Manager Bruce Moore has chosen a retired Entergy Arkansas executive to take over as assistant city manager next month.

James Jones, who retired in April from Entergy where he had worked since 1987, will begin at City Hall on Oct. 6 making $140,000, Moore said Monday.

Jones is replacing Bryan Day, who resigned in June to take the executive director job at the Little Rock Port Authority. Day had worked in some role at the city for 20 years and left making $137,650.

Jones has been Entergy's regional customer service manager for the past decade and has worked with Moore and other city officials in that capacity. Whenever a tornado or other natural disaster hit Little Rock, Jones participated on the city's Emergency Operation Committee.

Moore recalled that one year, as soon as Jones learned of a lengthy power failure at a senior citizens center, he made it his priority to restore electricity as soon as possible and was "very responsive" to city officials and residents during the process.

"He is known in Little Rock in both the business community and by neighborhood associations. ... I think he brings a very unique set of skills to the position and to the city," Moore said.

Moore selected Jones for the role Thursday after reopening the city's request for applications for about a week. The application period originally had closed at the end of June, bringing in 232 applications -- 44 of which were deemed qualified by the Human Resources Department and referred to Moore for review.

But Moore wasn't satisfied with those candidates and wanted the job open while he attended a city manager's conference in Charlotte, N.C., last week. During the extra week, about 40 more applications came in -- one of them belonging to Jones.

"I feel like I know City Hall at a high level," Jones said by phone Monday. "We've worked very well together. When this position was posted recently, I decided I was too young to stay at home and kind of had started looking for something else to do, and this seemed like it'd be a good fit."

The 61-year-old has a bachelor's degree in marketing from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. He serves on the board of directors of the Museum of Discovery, is a past vice chairman of the American Red Cross of Greater Arkansas and represented Entergy on the Downtown Little Rock Partnership Board of Directors until retiring in April.

At Entergy, he started as an industrial recruitment manager and for several months in 1996 was stationed in Melbourne, Australia. He has been the company's senior account manager, business development manager, regional marketing manager, and special projects and customer service manager.

Entergy President and Chief Executive Officer Hugh McDonald spoke highly of Jones when reached by email Monday.

"James is an excellent problem solver that can get into and understand the details while at the same time keep his eye on the overall objective. He was a can-do employee that could work productively with many parties on issues and still maintain positive relationships with the individuals," McDonald wrote.

Jones requested that his Entergy salary be redacted from his city job application before it was released to the public. Kathleen Walker, the city's employment manager, said she couldn't cite a specific exemption that allowed for that information to be redacted under the state's Freedom of Information Act, but she excluded it at Jones' request.

The city regularly has included salary information on documents released to the public. The former salaries of other applicants to the assistant city manager job were included on their applications provided to the newspaper this summer.

From 1977-79, Jones worked in the Arkansas secretary of state's office as an administrative aide to both Secretaries of State Winston Bryant and Paul Riviere. In 1991, he was appointed to the Arkansas Arts Council by Gov. Bill Clinton and was reappointed by Gov. Guy Tucker, serving until 1999.

He also has public service experience from early in his career as an industrial and community development project manager at the Arkansas Industrial Development Commission from 1979-87.

That, coupled with his private-sector work for Entergy, puts him in a good position to take on assistant city manager duties, he said.

"Dealing with a lot of customers at Entergy, I've dealt with a lot of issues that may be different in nature but are very similar to the issues or questions or problems constituents will have with the city," Jones said.

Moore also said Jones' work with Entergy correlates well with the assistant city manager's duties. The position works with city boards and commissions, quasi-city entities, the city's department heads, and on a variety of other issues that come up -- including issues constituents phone in to City Hall.

"I also think it's good to have someone who has been in the private sector quite a period of time to join my senior management team to look at how we do business and see how we can improve our service," Moore said.

Metro on 09/23/2014

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