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Turnaround in Shady Cove Mayor works overtime to lead city back from the financial brink By MELISSA MARTIN About Tom Anderson Occupation : Shady Cove mayor Age : 56 Personal : Married with two grown children and five grandsons. Moved to Shady Cove from Mill Valley, Calif., in 1990 Education : Acalanes High School, Lafayette, Calif., 1960; Diablo Valley College, Concordia, Calif., 1962. Employment : Retired as director of field operations, PacTel Communications (now Airtouch Communications), 1988. Community Involvement : Shady Cove budget committee, 1991 to 1994; Upper Rogue Community Center board, 1995 to 1998; Greater Shady Cove Boosters board, 1995 to 1996; Shady Cove Planning Commission, 1995 to 1996; Southern Oregon Regional Communications board (representing Fire District 4), current; Rogue Valley Council of Governments executive board (representing the city), current; Rogue Valley Area Commission on Transportation, current. SHADY COVE -- Tom Anderson thought he was retiring when he left his Pacific Telesis management post in California, directing a $40 million budget and 325 people in four Western states. Instead of retirement, Anderson found a second career -- this time without pay -- when he was elected mayor of Shady Cove, a nearly bankrupt city at the time. But he jumped right in, working 40 hours a week as mayor as well as performing the duties of city administrator. Within two years, he turned a tourist town with a 30 percent deficit into a financially solvent community. "It was incredible," says Michael Piels of Michael Piels and Associates, the accounting firm that has audited the city for 12 years. "The city had a deficit balance of about $83,000 in the general fund and with the limited resources that the city has, we would have guessed, conservatively, that it would have taken five or more years to get rid of the negative balance," Piels says. "Tom did it in two years." Anderson says the city's attorney and accountants have helped him through the paper maze. He also credits his father, Bob Anderson, a former city attorney in Berkeley and Hercules, Calif. Many of the 4,000 hours Anderson logged that first year in Shady Cove were spent writing on his personal computer or crunching numbers on an adding machine at home. But he and the City Council began pulling city finances out of the red just the way he would have balanced a family budget or a corporate budget -- by limiting spending and increasing revenue. "They really concentrated on watching every penny that went out of that city," Piels says. "They cut back on staff, used more volunteers. "You don't see government acting like a business too often, but by golly, they did." Besides tight budgeting, Anderson and the council increased resources, partly by creating development fees to pay for street repairs. "When I became mayor in 1996, there were no system development charges and no planned, controlled growth. We had developers building at a low cost and putting the burden of infrastructure on the taxpayers," Anderson says. Other accomplishments during Anderson's tenure have included a modern city charter written by a council-appointed committee, a city newsletter, construction of the city's first AAA-sanctioned motel, winning $1.5 million in grants and loans to repair the city's aging sewer system, restoring the police department to original staffing levels and hiring the city's first paid administrator, Jerry L'Estrange. "While there were many people who wanted to hire a city administrator, Tom is the one who carried it out. He got the financing to do it," says Shady Cove resident Gilbert Purdy, an engineer. "And he's still involved in finding other ways of improving our city." Anderson's wish list includes persuading voters to pass a $6.5 million bond issue this fall to build the city's first water system. Residents rely on private wells for water now. He would also like the city to buy additional riverfront property to give residents more access to the water. "The Rogue River is the crown jewel of our city and most of the people can't even get to it, and that's not right," Anderson says. After all, it was a monstrous salmon season in 1989 that brought Anderson and his wife, Liz, to Shady Cove in the first place. The couple had given up hope after a 13-week tour of the United States and Canada searching for a place to retire. On a whim, they decided to visit Crater Lake National Park. On their way back to Interstate 5, they discovered friendly anglers lining the banks of the Rogue near Shady Cove. "What we instantly loved about this area was how outgoing and friendly the people were. And frankly, we still love that about Shady Cove," Anderson says. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA