Sioux City held public finalist interviews for its next city manager on a meeting day that included two hourlong candidate sessions and a community question-and-answer period. Craig Clark, administrator for Austin, Minnesota, and Drew (city administrator, Winterset) described their experience and priorities and answered council and public questions; no hiring decision was announced.

Both candidates told the council that personnel and intergovernmental relationships would be priorities if hired. "Most important asset...is the staff," said Craig Clark, who emphasized pay and retention, capital-equipment needs and the need to align staff work with council priorities. "The number one thing...is to build trust," said Drew, who described an "inside-out" onboarding that begins with department heads and moves outward to community stakeholders and regional partners.

Clark emphasized experience with multi-level funding and economic incentives. He described using a five-year tax-abatement program in previous posts to spur market-rate housing and said his city pursued a $40 million manufacturing investment with layered incentives. Clark also detailed infrastructure choices he has managed — including a wastewater plant project he described as about $105,000,000 and a $1.6 million ladder truck for fire — as background for his remarks about capital and budget trade-offs. He told council members that staff-level decisions should respect the council’s role on broad policy questions while keeping the manager informed of constituent issues.

Drew, who described 20 years of public- and emergency-management experience including work with the Iowa Department of Public Health and the Iowa National Guard, framed his first 90 days around listening and building trust with staff, elected leaders and community groups. He said he would prioritize a clear set of expectations, advance department-level authority where appropriate, and work with county emergency management and regional partners on preparedness and response.

On housing, both candidates pointed to different levers. Clark described incentives and financing tools he has used — five-year abatements, a 15-year payback structure for developer infrastructure assessments, and pursuit of low-income housing tax credits — and urged protecting naturally occurring affordable housing through code enforcement and rehabilitation. Drew emphasized data-driven decisions about commuting patterns and workforce incomes before selecting types of housing to pursue and noted Winterset’s use of rental inspection and a downtown adaptive-reuse project to add units.

Other recurring themes in questioning and candidate answers included union and labor relations, diversity and outreach, downtown redevelopment and developer permitting. Clark described negotiating multiple collective-bargaining groups and said the bargaining process is formal and bound by law; he also described programs to engage recently arrived populations, including an honorary council-member program he used to introduce residents to local institutions. Drew described efforts to set predictable timelines for plan review and to manage developer expectations while protecting life-safety codes and permitting standards.

Both candidates discussed disaster and emergency response. Clark cited officer-involved incidents his staff handled and the value of long-term trust-building with the public; Drew described work on pandemic and regional medical surge planning while at the Iowa Department of Public Health and county emergency management. Each said collaboration with county and state emergency managers would be a starting point for flood- or severe-weather planning in Sioux City.

The session included public-submitted questions read by the recruitment consultant and a community Q&A; candidates repeated that they would be visible in the community through events and regular outreach while preserving time for off-duty family responsibilities. After the Q&A, the council voted to adjourn; the motion to adjourn carried on a recorded voice vote (O'Kane, Shaner, Scott, Waters, Moore: Aye).

The council did not announce a hire; members said they would follow up and vote on next steps outside the interview forum.