It would be fair to say that Sacramento’s new city manager, John Shirey, has hit the ground running. That’s a good thing, too, because he has a lot of ground to cover if he’s going to meet his goal of making Sacramento “the best managed city in California.”

His first official day with the city was Sept. 1, and he’s spent the first week on the job jumping right in to the work ahead, Shirey said in an interview Friday.

“I’m in a 90-day period of goal-setting,” Shirey said, “and understanding what this organization needs and what the City Council is willing to do as a group.”

Shirey said that means putting together a specific plan and sharing with city staff and council exactly how he wants to achieve that primary goal.

“That’s asking for a lot,” Shirey said, “considering there are a lot of very-well-managed cities in this state. We will be the best-managed.”

In a faltering economy with revenues down, Shirey said the city has been “put back several years.” But that’s the challenge he has to deal with.

It’s not all bad news as far as Shirey is concerned, though. He sees economic challenges as an “opportunity to reshape the organization for new times and new realities.”

Shirey said he sees it as a chance to make the city operate more efficiently – and efficiency is key to his primary goal.

“We need to figure out how to provide services that are important and essential to our citizens,” Shirey said, “but do it in a way that takes into account that we have diminished resources. That’s the equation I get to solve.”

Shirey brings to the equation a background in economic development. He said he wants to use his experience to focus on changing Sacramento’s reputation from being “a one-store town” where government is the main employer in town, to creating a reputation for being a great place for business.

“Sacramento and the Sacramento region are greatly underappreciated as a good place to do business,” Shirey said.

“We have a number of advantages here,” Shirey said. “We have a relatively low cost of housing, high quality of life and an environment which invites people to raise their families here. But we’re not thought of as a good place for businesses.”

Shirey said he wants to see more businesses locating here, because that would mean more jobs.

“That is the bottom line with economic development: jobs, jobs and jobs,” Shirey said.

And he’s not wiling to wait around for things to change.

“I’m going to be impatient,” Shirey said. “We’ve done a lot of planning and strategizing already. We need to drill down and be specific about where we think we can be competitive in attracting certain kinds of businesses and industries to Sacramento.”

To accomplish this, Shirey said he is developing relationships with other organizations in the region that are involved in economic development and finding ways to work together to reshape Sacramento’s reputation from “government-only” to “business-friendly.”

Shirey said his eight years as city manager in Cincinnati, while not always easy, taught him a lot.

“What I took away from that (experience),” Shirey said, “is that being the city manager is a tough job. It always will be when you take on the big-city challenges. It’s not easy in small towns, either.”

Shirey said that, with all of his experience and “a lot of miles” behind him, he no longer has to wonder what he wants for the city. He said he knows what a city organization should be capable of doing, and he knows how to handle tough issues.

“We have to be innovative, and we have to use technology to our advantage,” Shirey said.

Part of being innovative, Shirey said, is being willing to do new things and taking risks – measured risks.

“We want to be on the leading edge, not the bleeding edge,” Shirey said. “We’re going to make mistakes, but we’re going to hit a lot more singles, doubles, triples and home runs than we are strikeouts. That’s the way I want to manage the organization.”

Melissa Corker is a Staff Reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow her on Twitter @MelissaCorker.