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Jason Gray, Celina’s first city manager
By Matthew Price
At the May 15 Celina City Council meeting, Jason Gray was announced as the first city manager ever for the City of Celina.
Gray worked for over eight years as the assistant city manager in Frisco, and he was selected as the city administrator for Celina in March. In accordance with Celina’s city charter approved during recent elections, Celina now adheres to a council-manager form of government, and the Council unanimously approved to appoint Gray to the newly formed role of city manager.
“(Gray) has not only been over a few hills, but he’s seen six or seven mountains ahead,” said Councilman Brad Glendening.
As outlined in Celina’s charter, Gray’s duties include exercising “control over all departments and subdivisions thereof created by this Charter or by ordinance.” He works hand in hand with departments of the city including, for example, building and standards and the Main Street program.
“As we’re starting to go through our budget process, there are a lot of different programs I’m looking at,” said Gray. Now is a great time to do an evaluation based upon what we find. I’m doing that pretty well across the board right now.”
“Main Street is here to have elements and programs that directly support the downtown area,” he said. “This is something that makes Celina unique because it’s the heart of the city. This is the area that has given Celina the identity that it has, and so I want to honor that and value that and realize that there is a treasure here. It is our obligation to make sure that we are valuing that treasure.”
Gray emphasized that he wants to continue the intention of various programs, but if the value isn’t there, he said he would like the city to consider some changes. He said that if an evaluation reveals that the value is there, then it is worth supporting.
Gray will be directly involved in the upcoming Celina City Council workshop retreat which is tentatively set to take place on June 8 and 9 at the Hampton Inn in Frisco. Many of the goals of the city will be established at that meeting. Gray said that his experience has shown that fewer distractions are present when such work sessions are held outside of the city.
“My goal in having the work session is to get some very undivided attention on goals, priorities, and strategies for the City of Celina, not just in the next year, but for the long term as well,” said Gray. “We’ve got some very talented and good people working for the city of Celina, and organizationally, I don’t know that we have done a great job of nurturing an environment that plays to the strengths of the people we have. One of the things I’m planning to continue to work on is planning an organizational culture structure that is willing and able to allow our people to work within their strengths.”
Gray has been analyzing the environment of Celina’s city offices. He presented suggestions at the May 14 city council meeting for possibly updating certain city facilities. He pointed out that some facilities, such as the police station, are not accessible to persons in wheelchairs, for example, and that some of the city offices do not indicate openness to the public.
Gray proposed that the former CISD Administration building, located by the football field at 501 East Pecan Street, serve as the Celina Police Department. He proposed that the church annex building, located to the left of Celina Church of God on Walnut Street be updated to serve as the offices for City Hall.
In the long term, Gray said Celina can expect every type of business to come to Celina including hotels, shopping malls, and office complexes. “It’s going to be a while before we see those things, but we’ve got to be putting the groundwork in today to see to it that we are prepared to accept those businesses in the future,” he said.
Gray said he expects steady growth over the next 12 months, and that in 24 months, “we may start to see some rather substantial office parks such as two story medical offices, insurance offices, or small retail offices.”
“I can see some initial work on a large area office campus start to develop in 10 years, something on the scale of a Hall Office Park, a Legacy Business Park, or something like that,” said Gray.
Gray encourages opening the lines of communication in Celina. He said that the city should work hand in hand with the Celina Independent School District as well as the Celina Chamber of Commerce.
He said that he wants the people of Celina to feel like that they can come to him with concerns, and he said he wants to be able to reach the people as well. “There is always room for more communication, internally as well as externally, and I believe that it’s difficult that we want to be communicating clearly with our citizens if we’re not communicating clearly internally.”
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