Bonfield to be named Durham city manager

DURHAM -- Tom Bonfield, the city manager of Pensacola, Fla., will be named Durham's new city manager Tuesday, Pensacola's mayor confirmed this morning.

The City Council has called a special meeting at 4:30 p.m. today. to discuss the hiring of the new manager. The council's regular meeting will follow at 7 p.m.

"I consider Tom Bonfield absolutely the most professional city manager I've ever worked with, and he's going to be a tremendous loss to our community," Mayor John Fogg said today. "I know that he's going to do just as great a job there."

Bonfield, 53, has been in the Pensacola job since 1998. The city has a population of about 54,000, roughly one-quarter that of Durham.

In other ways, though, the two cities have some similarities. Median household is about $41,000 in both. Pensacola's population is about 32 percent black, compared with 44 percent in Durham.

The public never got a chance to meet or question Bonfield before he was brought into replace Patrick Baker.

The council couldn't reach a consensus on any of the three finalists who attended a public forum in late April. Bonfield is one of two candidates who declined to enter the finalists pool for fear the public outing would irk the leadership in their respective cities.

Council members met in closed session several times last week to hammer out an agreement with Bonfield. The official announcement is slated to come Tuesday.

Fogg credited Bonfield for leading the city after Hurricane Ivan wreaked havoc in Pensacola in 2004. In fact, the city had to operate without a headquarters for two years after City Hall suffered major damage. Fogg commended him for keeping city operations moving even as "our entire workforce was spread all over town."

Fogg also praised Bonfield for his work on economic development projects downtown, including a maritime museum complex that featured a baseball stadium, conference center, museum and amphiteater at a public cost of $40 million.

Economic development is a high priority for Durham leaders.