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Traverse City welcomes Valerie Handy as deputy city manager
Summary
Valerie Handy began her role as Traverse City’s deputy city manager on July 13, telling commissioners she brings decades of regional planning and federal funding experience and plans to align the city’s Strategic Action Plan with measurable results.
Valerie Handy was introduced at the July 13 study session as Traverse City’s new deputy city manager. City Manager (speaker 3) said Handy emerged from a nationwide recruitment and praised her leadership and experience working with federal programs that invest in local communities.
"I'm Valerie Handy. You are welcome to call me Val as soon as you're comfortable," Handy said, describing herself as a certified economic developer and a local who was born at Munson Medical Center and attended local schools. She told the commission she has led work that deployed "billions of federal dollars" and emphasized experience convening regional partners and building measurable performance systems.
Handy tied her priorities to the city’s Strategic Action Plan and the city’s objectives-and-key-results framework, saying she will focus on performance measurement, data governance and community engagement to move planning into implementation. The city manager noted that Handy starts full-time on July 13 and that commissioners can expect her to support work on housing, growth management and regional collaboration.
Handy’s remarks closed with a pledge to keep community priorities connected to measurable outcomes; the manager said the commission will see her involved in upcoming item briefings and follow-up work.
Next steps: commissioners welcomed Handy and said they look forward to follow-up meetings and seeing her support the Strategic Action Plan initiatives in coming months.
