Alexandria’s newest city manager comes to the job with years of experience leading local government in a diverse, metropolitan suburb named Arlington.
Just not the Arlington next door.
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Jim Parajon, who works as a deputy city manager in Arlington, Texas, is set to assume the top appointed post in the Northern Virginia city on Jan. 18, Alexandria elected officials announced Wednesday evening.
An urban planner by trade, he comes to Alexandria as the city is in the midst of several major development projects, including a new hospital and university campus, and as it works to update crowded schools and aging storm and sewer pipes.
In recent debates over a chronic flooding problem, the role of police in schools or the future of a waterfront arts center, residents have not shied away from voicing their oft-critical opinions of Alexandria leadership. And for Parajon, that’s part of the appeal of his new job.
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“As a planner, I live and breathe in receiving information and knowledge and listening to people about how they feel,” he said in an interview. “So a chance to work in a city where engagement was so high — that’s really fantastic.”
Alexandria has a weak-mayor system, which means that Mayor Justin Wilson (D) is largely limited to his role presiding over the City Council. The city manager is the one who oversees a bureaucracy of 2,600 employees and proposes the $770 million city budget.
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Parajon takes over from Mark B. Jinks, who held the job for more than six years, at a time of unusual turnover in Alexandria’s government.
Three new members will assume their seats on the seven-person City Council on Jan. 3, marking a major shift in that body’s composition. Alexandria’s sheriff, police chief and communications director have all announced their departures in recent months.
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Unlike Jinks, who came up through the world of municipal finance, Parajon began his career as a regional planner and more recently oversaw economic development, transportation and first-responder agencies in Arlington, a suburb of Dallas and Fort Worth that is more than twice as large as Alexandria.
He helped bring Super Bowl XLV to Cowboys Stadium, enforced a new city restriction on short-term rentals and secured a deal for the largest esports arena in North America.
Wilson said Parajon’s experience in Texas made him well-suited to manage Alexandria as it carries out two major real estate deals — with Inova Health System and Virginia Tech — that probably will reshape entire neighborhoods.
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“Having come from that planning background, at a time we are working to realize a whole myriad of plans we have put on the shelf for decades in the city, is really important,” Wilson said.
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Parajon said he was excited about the new Virginia Tech campus as a way to expand local job opportunities and the city’s tax base. But “you also need to be careful about the potential challenges and consequences of that commitment,” he said.
The city will also embark this spring on its first-ever collective bargaining process — a task that Parajon said he is prepared to handle after participating in meet-and-confer sessions with public-sector employee groups in Texas.
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Alexandria worked with an executive search firm and interviewed about a half dozen candidates. In addition to City Council members, three committees — residents appointed by the council, senior officials on the city staff, and rank-and-file staff members — met with three finalists for the job.
Parajon, a native of Poughkeepsie, N.Y., graduated from Dickinson College in Pennsylvania and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst before working for city governments in North Carolina’s Research Triangle.
An “East Coast guy” at heart, he said Alexandria won him over when he came across the farmers market in Old Town and then a cocktail competition on the waterfront during a visit earlier this year.