After taking a course about local government, Jim Connors was hooked on city government and administration.

The 52-year-old DeKalb city manager said the biggest challenge of being the chief administrative officer of DeKalb is “to plan 20 to 30 years in advance, while maintaining the daily issues like garbage pick-ups.” He added, “I oversee public works, police and fire, finances, and I help our city develop long-range goals and alternative policy recommendations.”

Connors, originally from the South Side of Chicago, came to DeKalb in the 1960s to pursue a college education at NIU. He received a bachelor of science degree, and later a master’s degree in public administration from NIU.

Connors explained that as the suburbs started to grow more rapidly, a need for more public affairs people materialized.

After completing an internship in Deerfield, Connors eventually was brought back to DeKalb to take a position as a community developer/special project director from 1979 to 1981.

Connors was the Warrenville city administrator, and came back to DeKalb in 1998, he said.

He saw there was an opening in DeKalb administration, and since his family lived here since 1979, he wanted to stay.

“I saw DeKalb was growing, and I knew I was familiar with some of these things from my past experiences in Warrenville and Burr Ridge,” Connors said.

For the better part of five years, Connors said that he has worked to “balance the needs of a growing community, while meeting the expectations of continued excellent services without increasing taxes.”

Connors talked about how necessary it is for the city to deal with a diverse populations with different needs, but said that because of the city’s government structure, that need was feasible.

Connors said the best characteristic of DeKalb is that it captures both the small-town atmosphere and the volunteerism spirit of such a place, while continually growing and adapting to meet the needs of a university town.

“I want people to enjoy DeKalb and to look at DeKalb as a place they feel is safe and comfortable, a place that they would want to raise their family,” Connors said.

Connors shared his goals for university students and their relationships with the city.

“Every time they have a dealing with the city, I want them to have felt that they were treated fairly and that their needs were met,” he said.

As city manager, Connors would like to see the downtown area have more of an NIU presence in the storefront windows, and would like to see NIU students discover more of what downtown has to offer them.