INDEPENDENCE, Mo. — After nine years on the job, something of an eternity in city manager years, Zach Walker is leaving Independence next month, but he’s not leaving the city behind.
“Because this was home for 13 years, it's not a place you turn your back on,” he said.
Walker, who is originally from Trenton, Missouri, started with the city of Independence — the fifth-largest city in Missouri and fifth-largest in the Kansas City area — as a management analyst in 2012 and was promoted to city manager in 2016. He accepted the same post in Bloomington, Minnesota, last month and will head north in mid-October.
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“I only am able to do this because I know this community is in a better place than when we started, and that's what gives me the peace and the ability to walk away,” Walker said.
Among the successes he touted from his tenure, Independence Square has been revitalized, the city is on better financial footing, redevelopment has started in west Independence and the North Point project promises new future revenue in east Independence.
“I think good things have been started,” Walker said. “The next city manager, I think their biggest challenge is simply going to be sustaining momentum.”
Independence residents have noticed changes in the last decade.
“I love Independence,” Steve Bledsoe said. “It’s like a little town and people get along.”
Shelby Bradley works at a business on Independence Square.
“Small businesses are thriving pretty much, quite a bit more than what they used to,” she said. “... Independence has done pretty well, but there’s some tweaks and some other things they could actually do better in.”
She’d like to see empty storefronts around the Square kept up better and wished the city did more to fix neighborhood roads.
“They’re actually spending more money on areas that don’t need to be improved,” Bradley said. “The little streets and stuff in suburb areas around Independence need more TLC than a lot of main streets."
Originally from Oak Grove, Bradley has lived in Independence for 20 years and, on balance, she likes it.
Of course, there have been challenges in Independence during the last decade and Walker isn’t naive about that, especially with respect to the Independence Police Department.
“When you go to the ICMA (International City Management Association) annual conference, there's not an hour that goes by that there's not a session on relationships between the city manager and the chief of police, how to most effectively manage the police department, merging Issues in Law Enforcement,” Walker said. ‘It is a complex department that deals with complex issues.”
Walker acknowledged that IPD’s jail renovation, which circumvented city purchase protocols and relied heavily on overtime paid to a police officer who performed the construction, was a black eye.
“Certainly, that is not a resume builder at all,” Walker said.
But Walker said he always tried to face such issues head-on.
“Every time something adverse or negative happened, it's been an opportunity for certainly me, personally and professionally, but our organization, to learn and grow and figure out, how can we do things better?” he said.
Walker credited collaboration with elected city leaders in growing Independence’s presence within the region.
“My fear was not that Independence was being viewed negatively,” he said. “My fear was that Independence wasn't being thought of at all. ... I didn't see us represented at the tables and in the organizations where we should be, and I credit our elected leadership for being willing to allocate the time to become present in things like the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, more involved in the Mid-America Regional Council, more involved in the eastern Jackson County leadership tables. Some of the places where big decisions were being made, where funds were being allocated, where the future was being determined, Independence wasn't even at that table.”
But that changed with prodding from Walker, who leaves a piece of heart behind as he trades Independence Center for the Mall of America.
“This being Harry Truman's hometown, I'm really fond of his quote where he says, ‘Do your job, and history will do you justice,’” Walker said. “I know not everything's been perfect, but I hope, with the benefit of time, the community will see and value that we laid a foundation for future success here.”
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