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Andrew Pazuchowski
HUNTINGTON WOODS — The city of Huntington Woods soon will be searching for a new city manager.
Last month, Chris Wilson informed the city that he would be leaving his job as city manager to take the position of assistant city manager in Troy.
To fill his vacancy, the Huntington Woods City Commission appointed Public Safety Director Andrew Pazuchowski as interim city manager during a special meeting April 1.
“He’s been at the city for over a decade. He’s become very familiar with the city and its operations. It’s not uncommon to rely on a public safety director, a police chief, to do these types of things,” Mayor Pro Tem Joe Rozell said. “In conversations with him, I think that he’s not viewing this as just keeping the seat warm or being a caretaker, that he is actually interested in continuing to keep the city moving forward while the commission begins its search process.”
Pazuchowski has worked in municipal government for more than 40 years, starting in Grosse Pointe Woods before moving to Huntington Woods, where he’s been for 11 years.
Pazuchowski said that when you’ve worked in government for that many years, you’re familiar with every aspect of what the city is doing, whether it’s in regard to public works or budget season.
“Did I ever have aspirations early on to be a city manager? No, but it is very common for police chiefs to become city managers, and several cities have done that. Troy has just recently done that. … We’re a very large part of the community and knowledge-based in regards to roads and DPWs and police departments. So that’s why I had no problem with being interim at this part of my career,” he said.
The city last undertook a search process for a new city manager in 2021 when Amy Sullivan resigned. The search took six months before Huntington Woods selected Wilson.
That process involved two former city managers conducting the search and narrowing down the field of candidates before the commission interviewed the finalists.
Rozell said that no formal process had been decided on yet.
“I envision sort of a similar process this time,” he said. “We will likely use an outside consultant to assist us with recruiting and advertising and vetting the different candidates. So that’ll be at a future meeting a discussion where we will set a timeline and then begin sort of discussions on what that looks like.”
Rozell said Pazuchowski is willing to serve in the interim capacity for as long as needed during the search process.
“That was important, too, because we don’t know if this is going to be a three-month, a six-month, an eight-month process, and we need somebody who can commit to serving in this interim capacity for as long as it takes us to get a replacement hired,” he said.
Because Huntington Woods is a smaller city and has a low crime rate, Pazuchowski said the work balance between being a city manager and public safety director won’t be too difficult.
“I’m not concerned. If we were an extremely large public safety department, maybe there’d be some concern doing both jobs. It depends how long. I have a really good staff,” he said. “So, running the department and running the city, doing both jobs, to me, especially in the small city, I feel very confident.”
“I look forward to working more closely with the community in regards to being the city manager during this period of time,” Pazuchowski said. “I feel real comfortable with it and very confident that it should be flawless for us.”
Pazuchowski said he couldn’t say at this time if he’d be willing to work in the city manager’s position long term without the interim status and that, ultimately, it’s up to the commission if they want him moving forward.
“I like this community a whole lot. I like the way it’s run. I like the leadership here. In regards to that question, though, I want to get my feet wet and if the way things go, I very well may be interested in doing that, but at this early stage, without actually being over there and doing both jobs, I haven’t even thought about that,” he said.
