IN FOCUS: Inside local government with Longview City Manager Rolin McPhee

Yahoo

02-03-2025

TYLER, Texas (KETK) – In this edition of East Texas In Focus, KETK's Tyler Henderson sat down with Longview City Manager Rolin McPhee to talk about his role in local government as a part of our new series on East Texas city managers.
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McPhee took the time to sit down with KETK to explain what he does on a day-to-day basis for the city and what the city's plans look like going forward into the future.
As Longview City Manager, McPhee is the head of the city's administration and operations. This means he's almost like a CEO in that he's appointed by the city council and mayor like a business board appoints a CEO to manage a company on their behalf.
A city manager like McPhee has to manage all the city's departments and he must propose a budget to fund those departments. The city's departments oversee things like water, streets, parks, public safety and maintenance. All of these departments have to do their best work within the city's limited budget and that's what city managers like McPhee help make happen.
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'I believe city manager's jobs are actually supposed to make the departments within the city successful, and make sure they have the resources needed to do their job, in spite of the limitations,' McPhee said.
McPhee actually got his start as an engineer. He went to Texas A&M University in College Station and received his Bachelor's of Science degree in civil engineering. He worked with water and sewer lines and then as a licensed engineer in Longview before becoming the city engineer of Marshall.
25 years ago in Dec. 2000, the City of Longview hired McPhee and he worked as utilities engineer. He then went on to work as an engineering manager, assistant director of public works, director of public of works and he was appointed by the mayor and city council as city manager in 2022.
With all the things the city does manage like sanitation, water bills, maintaining the parks and the streets, it may make residents wonder just what doesn't the local government maintain?
McPhee explained how the city has partners like SWEPCO which provides the city's gas and the various hospitals and businesses that keep Longview running have relationships with the city as well.
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'We have relationships with people who invest in our community, but we don't dictate where they invest and we don't dictate the policies of those respective organizations,' McPhee said.
'We do a terrible job talking about the things we do,' explained McPhee. For a city of more than 50,000 people, Longview's city government has to do a lot of stuff which goes unnoticed.
McPhee told Tyler about how the city has to mow all the lawns in the parks, help clean litter, time all the traffic signals and they also provide housing and information services for other communities outside of Longview.
McPhee is optimistic about Longview's outlook going forward because of the community's reinvestment in infrastructure and the services that the city provides like water which is a hot topic across Texas.
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'Longview has had a continued reinvestment within the infrastructure over the last 20 years. In fact, when they brought me in back in 2000, we were building a new plan and securing water rights. And actually based on our current growth, if you look out 50 years, which is what the regional water planning groups plan for, Longview actually has enough water for the next 50 years,' said McPhee.
He credits the city's fortunate future to the thoughtful planning of other city government leaders who came before him.
'So Longview's in a really fortunate position. A long architect before me, I was not the one that should get the credit for it, but there was a lot of action put towards reinvestment in that infrastructure,' McPhee said. 'And actually, the City of Longview utility system is actually in fantastic shape and real close to retiring its debt. So in a great position for the long term, for the next 50 years, there's a lot of good stuff coming out of Longview.'
Tyler also asked McPhee several questions sent in to KETK from Longview residents. All those questions and more can be seen in the full episode of East Texas In Focus above.
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