SanTanValley.com

As if keeping the reins on Queen Creek's fiscal struggles and its economic-development aspirations weren't enough, town Manager John Kross has taken on a new workload with national and international ramifications.

Kross has stepped into the role of president of the 284-member Arizona City/County Management Association, a 57-year-old non-profit organization for top and mid-level managers in municipal and county government.

Besides setting the tone for an organization whose stated purpose is "to strengthen the quality of local government in the State of Arizona through professional management, education, training, and the mutual exchange of information," Kross also will play a key role in developing the program and schedule for the International City/County Management Association's annual conference.

Scheduled to be held in Phoenix this October, that conference is expected to draw more than 3,500 local and county government managers and their counterparts from around the world.

"I'm just happy to contribute my time and hopefully will continue to have the time," Kross, 43, said in an interview. "Fortunately I have a very talented board of directors. I'm looking at the perspective, too, of what I can bring back to Queen Creek through my interaction with the membership."

Among his duties as head of the state chapter is identifying trends in his profession -- and some are more challenging than ever, he said.

For example, he's concerned about maintaining an interest in government service among young people -- a tougher job these days amid increasing expectations of public servants even as some critics assail their level of compensation.

"We have some really talented people in the pipeline for public service, and I'm really excited about that but there are quite a lot of demands on public servants these days," Kross said. "I think the demands on public managers today, in my view, are certainly more of a heightened awareness for the 24/7 manager. You're always on call ...It seems there's an expectation for issues to be resolved at a pace that is much greater than before."

Those expectations are driven partly by technological advances, especially in social media, Kross said: "People today are much more local and much more connected to their local government and how local government responds to that is much more important."

Moreover, Kross worries about the nasty tone in today's public discourse about government at all levels "and how that impacts future generations moving into public service."

"People don't like being beaten on the head and degraded in that fashion," he said. "We work hard to address any stigma there might be out there concerning public service and the quality of public service."

The economy also has put a burden on government managers -- a trend that Kross, the town's manager since March 2007, has been forced to confront the last five years in the wake of the squeeze that the housing collapse and recession have put on Queen Creek's finances.

"We've been flat on our backs for so long," he said. "There's not a textbook out there or a manual to deal with it. We're reinventing ourselves on an almost continual basis. I embrace that because I don't think we can be complacent. We try to be innovative, looking for new ways of doing our business and resonating with our public and helping to improve their quality of life."

Queen Creek Mayor Gail Barney said Kross' efforts in that regard so far have been working. "John works tirelessly on behalf of the community," he said. "Without his knowledge and creativity, Queen Creek would have had a much more challenging time making it through the recent recession."