By Mondell Keck | The Brookings Register
BROOKINGS — In the city’s search for a new deputy city manager, Johnny Mays rose head and shoulders above the competition. Bringing more than 20 years of experience, he’s been working hard since starting Oct. 14.
A father to four children — two sons and two daughters ranging in age from 8 to 29 — he’s passionate about local government, especially parks and recreation. It’s something that’s been central to his life since he was 16.
“Dragging baseball fields, mowing, trimming,” Mays recalled in an interview with The Brookings Register on how it all started. “Helping the referee that would ref the soccer games and basketball games — things of that nature.”
From there he spread his wings, going into the programming and facilities sides of the parks and recreation equation.
“It just continued to grow, and I guess I’ve just been passionate about it ever since,” Mays said. “I’ve worked with elected officials, I’ve worked with city managers, directors of parks and public works — we need local government. Things get done at the local level; if you don’t have that, your community is going to be left behind.”
Mays came to Brookings from Columbia, Missouri, where he worked as director of facilities management for Boone County since April 2023. Before that, he worked 12 years in various supervisor and manager roles for the city of Lenexa, Kansas, according to information in a news release.
He’s now working with City Manager Paul Briseno to advance strategic priorities, provide executive oversight to departments, lead citywide projects, guide intergovernmental relations, and serve as acting city manager when needed, per the release.
Challenges, opportunities
Mays told the newspaper that Brookings faces challenges related to growth and funding.
“We’re a small community — we don’t have too many big businesses here where we can generate that tax base so that we can continue to provide exceptional services for our citizens,” he explained. “… That’s probably our biggest challenge … is just trying to find companies and organizations that can come here where we can utilize those tax revenues to increase our parks, right? To continue to build our roads and infrastructure. … We’re not like Sioux Falls or Rapid City. We’re slowly growing, and we don’t have those big-name companies here where we can bring in those revenues.”
Amid those challenges, though, is opportunity — with the most obvious being the retail growth represented by the Brookings Marketplace.
“With Target coming in and Aldi coming in and you have the Marketplace coming to fruition — hopefully that will start that growth because people will see that (those businesses) are moving in here,” Mays said. “There’s some land available right now in that area for businesses to go. Target and Aldi are brand-name companies … so hopefully they can help us bring in some other retailers (and) restaurants that we can put over in that part of the community.”
‘Great leadership’
When he was interviewing for the job — and going up against more than 60 other candidates — Mays said he immediately knew city officials shared his passion and commitment when they told him of their aspirations for Brookings.
“I feel like Brookings has great leadership, (and) not just at the city manager level, (but) elected officials as well,” he related. “That’s rare nowadays, right? We’re not going to always agree on things — we can agree to disagree — but the main thing that we have to keep at the forefront is how do we better our community? I think that every one of those elected officials want to make this a better community, and so I appreciate that.”
That ability to get things done is important in a city the size of Brookings.
“A lot of communities, they operate on a shoestring budget, right?” Mays said. “And so, we need people who are passionate about local government, people who have a vision and people who want to try to build community relationships.”
With Mays, passion comes paired with practicality and know-how — both earned over the years and especially so with one project in particular.
It was a $100 million effort that took place during his time working for the city of Lenexa, Kansas. It involved a new, 100,000-square foot recreation center and a 68,000-square foot city hall.
As a mid-level manager at the time, Mays said, “I played an instrumental role in deciding what kind of features were going to be in this facility, how we were going to make it welcoming, what the signage was going to look like.”
He said it was one of the biggest projects he’d ever been involved in, and included usage elements related to higher education, programming, and so on.
Faves
When he’s not focused on work, you might find Mays chowing down on his favorite foods — fettucine alfredo, or a good American cheeseburger. And he might do so while reading a book, albeit one that is about as far from pulp fiction as one can get.
“More like just books over local government, history — just a variety of different things,” Mays said. “I don’t really have a favorite topic; I just like to be informed and knowledgeable about the past and how that kind of help us determine what the future could look like.”
Beyond that, he’s also into basketball, a game he’s been in love with since the wee age of 6. While he didn’t go to college for the sport, he did play a lot of AAU basketball and, while growing up, went to summer basketball camps in addition to playing it in middle school and high school.
Honesty, integrity
Life tests everyone at one time or another — and perhaps multiple times as well. That’s true of Mays, too, with one of his tests coming in the form of Omaha steaks and potatoes. Yup. Meat and spuds.
They came from a vendor who sent his office hundreds of dollars’ worth of the goods while Mays was working for another city. The issue was related to the longtime vendor’s contract with the city, whose work responsibilities were being reduced because Mays determined the city could do those services itself in-house.
“My job was to do what was best and beneficial for the city, and what I thought would be best for the organization was to get rid of the contract,” Mays recalled. “We could do all the services in-house; we really didn’t need the contract.”
Mays added, “I had to create a plan to reduce his scope of work while increasing our scope of work. … He wanted to know why, and I explained to him why, and I told him that eventually we were going to get rid of his services. I don’t think he really liked it because he had been getting money and doing these contractual services for years.”
That’s where the steaks and potatoes came into the picture.
“I knew I couldn’t take it … so what I did was I notified my city manager, and I told him that I was going to take it to the food bank, and so I did,” Mays said. “They looked at me like I was crazy: ‘You’re dropping this off?’ I said, ‘It’s the right thing to do.’ I don’t want to be influenced in my role; I just want to do my job. The last thing I need is for somebody to send me gifts to try to influence that relationship.”
‘Great community’
In closing, Mays had warm words for Brookings and its residents.
“(It’s) a great community — a lot of people … are passionate about (it),” Mays said. “Get engaged as much as (you) can to continue to make it a better community. I think that Brookings, so far in my opinion, is the No. 1 city in South Dakota.”
He buttressed it with a final observation.
“Continue to just be open-minded, continue to be passionate, continue to explore new opportunities for the community, continue to listen and just do everything that (you) can in (your) roles to build upon the success that Brookings has generated,” Mays advised.
— Contact Mondell Keck at [email protected].
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