Huntington Woods to keep public safety director in dual role as city manager

HUNTINGTON WOODS — Huntington Woods did not have to look far in its search for a permanent city manager.

At its Sept. 16 meeting, the City Commission made its intentions known to have Public Safety Director and interim City Manager Andrew Pazuchowski stay on full time in a permanent dual role.

Pazuchowski has served as interim city manager since April. Over the past six months, he has acted in a dual role as both city manager and public safety director, which is a position he’s held since 2014. He also holds a bachelor’s degree in community development and a master’s degree in administration.

Pazuchowski said he’s enjoyed the challenge of his dual role and trying to provide the best service possible to the residents.

“A lot of times I see from even my side of the fence over here as a police chief things that I look at within the city that need to be addressed that may have not been addressed for whatever reason, whether it’s financial reasons or not,” he said. “I love the challenge of trying to provide the best service, whether it’s public safety — which is our No. 1 priority, is the safety of the community — but also to provide services that this community wants and the aesthetics of the community, all those things. So, I enjoy the challenge of doing that.”

With Pazuchowski now set to be the permanent city manager, he knows he’ll have a lot more people and residents to answer to, as he’s seen over the last several months.

“I do speak face-to-face with a lot of the residents in the community, not just the commissions, not just the committees, to get a better perspective of what the community wants as a whole, or the majority of,” he said. “I can’t make everybody happy. Obviously, nobody can, and I learned that in law enforcement. So, it’s very difficult, but you do the best you can to provide the best service you can for what the city wants.”

For compensation, Huntington Woods plans on giving Pazuchowski a pay raise for the increased responsibilities, but he will not receive the full salaries of both positions, which the city stated would save them more than $100,000.

From what he’s heard from residents and other elected officials and what he’s personally seen, Mayor Bob Paul has been impressed with the work Pazuchowski has done so far.

“Since 2014, when we hired Andrew as our director of public safety, he’s done a great job of running the department, managing personnel, making important capital improvements and most important, learning the community and the unique qualities that we have,” he said during the meeting.

Paul added there were concerns about the hiring process and having a predisposition to hiring Pazuchowski and what the process would look like, if they would put a posting on the city’s website, have a listing with the Michigan Municipal League, or hire and spend thousands of dollars on a recruiting firm.

“Finding a candidate with the knowledge of Huntington Woods that Andrew has was not likely, and not that saving money is the No. 1 concern in hiring a new city manager, but finding a candidate that also served as director of public safety and thus saving the city over $100,000 per year would be impossible,” Paul said.

The city plans to write a contract agreement to bring back for commission approval at its next meeting, which is currently scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 21, at City Hall.