After more than four years leading through a particularly “difficult chapter” in the city’s history, Aurora’s CEO is preparing to leave his post, and still calling it the favorite job he’s held.

City Manager Jim Twombly announced he will retire in early April after 42 years in public service. Twombly joined Aurora in 2018 after working in multiple states and most recently the City of Tulsa. Of them all, Aurora has been his favorite, he said. He credits that to the people he has worked with.

“From the day I first arrived here, it just seemed that everybody had such a positive attitude,” he said in an interview with the Denver Gazette. “So committed to the work they’re doing. In a lot of ways, I feel like it made my job easier. I mean it’s a tough job, but it makes all the difference in the world to have a team that, everybody is kind of growing in the same direction. And a lot of really smart people.”

A difficult chapter

Before the turmoil of 2020, city staff were working on the city’s infrastructure and capital planning process and changed how Aurora’s budget is prioritized, but then shelved a number of projects that were on the cusp of launching.

The COVID-19 pandemic unfolded, and numerous controversies surrounding the police department followed — including national attention around the death of Elijah McClain after a violent police stop. During Twombly’s time, Aurora has felt the pressure from crises plaguing the region, too, such as affordable housing and water availability.

Multiple members of the city council described Twombly’s leadership as steady-handed during the rollercoaster past few years.

Twombly spent much of his tenure putting out fires and responding to issues that were out of his control, Councilmember Dustin Zvonek said after his retirement was announced. He made decisions that left him “in some circles, not popular,” such as the high-profile firing of former police chief Vanessa Wilson, Zvonek said, although that was a decision that earned Zvonek’s respect.

Late last year, Wilson began taking the legal steps required to sue the city, alleging her firing was illegal and in retaliation for reforms she pursued while helming the agency. A notice of claim she filed in September named Twombly individually, among other city officials.

Councilmember Crystal Murillo said she evolved from a skeptic of Twombly when he was appointed to being pleasantly surprised with his leadership. He’s leaving the city in a stable position after unexpected hurdles, she said. Before he left, she said, she hoped to sit down with him and learn about what he thinks the city needs moving forward.

Mayor Mike Coffman hailed Twombly as having done “an extraordinary job during a very difficult chapter in the history of our city.”

Biggest challenges

One of his greatest challenges, Twombly said, was responding to the death of Elijah McClain and protests spurred by the murder of George Floyd.

The city addressed both controversies by hiring an independent investigative team to look at how the city handled McClain’s case, receiving “very strong” recommendations for future best practices, Twombly said.

The city retained another firm to do a deep dive into the police department’s policies and procedures, while working with the attorney general’s office to negotiate the five-year consent decree agreement now in place. The city abandoned its use of ketamine as a result of McClain’s death, Twombly said.

“I wish we would have hired the outside investigating team earlier, because I think it really sort of pulled back the curtain and shed light on just sort of the step-by-step, how we got to where we were with that,” he said.

When an officer was discovered passed out in his car, the city hired an independent investigator quickly because of lessons learned from McClain’s death, Twombly said. Looking for outside opinions in both cases was the right choice, he said.

“In a lot of ways, it was brave, because it was saying, ‘OK, we want to be an open book here,’” he said.

The controversy surrounding the officer discovered passed out at the wheel of his vehicle while on duty brewed again this year when he was promoted.

Sheneen McClain, Elijah McClain’s mother, was not surprised to hear another Aurora official planned to leave city hall “before good progress” had been achieved in reforming the Aurora Police Department, she said.

McClain said the department continues hiring bad officers who don’t see the community as their equals and that the consent decree is still young. Twombly “owes the City of Aurora and its residents a better place to live. He owes the City of Aurora a better police department,” she said.

“He’s basically pushing the problem on to somebody else,” she said.

The city manager became a title she heard spoken about often following her son’s death, she said, and often in negative circumstances. McClain is still angered by his decision to fire former Chief Wilson and what she called inaction in swiftly addressing problems within department.

“He waited too late to act in my son’s brutal murder. He waited too late to make sure that those who murdered my son didn’t have a job,” she said.

The next city manager “has to be somebody who has humanity within them.”

Proud moments

Twombly took the most pride in work he undertook on behalf of employees, he said, naming inflation stipends and pay adjustments. Twombly is credited with starting up the city’s diversity, equity and inclusion office in January 2020 — another initiative he said he was proud to have worked on for city staff.

In its first two years, Twombly said the program gained a solid base and was established to the point it had reach within every department.

“Having that in place when the George Floyd murder happened” and the ensuing protests was “extremely timely,” he said.

The COVID-19 pandemic posed an unprecedented challenge to municipalities across the nation but Twombly was proud of ways the city sought to help. In Aurora, the city used recovery funds to issue $12 million in rental assistance, and helped nearly 2,000 families, he said. Another $10 million package helped provide small business grants, he said.

“We were really very agile, I think, during COVID,” he said.