Solomon Crenshaw Jr.
Cale Smith
Cale Smith steps in as acting city manager of Homewood.
A year and two months after residents voted to adopt a city manager form of government, Homewood has its second person serving in that role.
Cale Smith, formerly the city’s engineer, was approved by the Homewood City Council to serve as acting city manager. The Nov. 10 vote was retroactive to Smith’s appointment by Mayor Jennifer Andress on Nov. 3.
Smith succeeds Glen Adams, who was hired after the 2022 referendum to serve as Homewood’s interim city manager. His contract expired as the new council and mayor took office.
“It’s been a whirlwind week,” Smith said following the first council meeting of the new term. “We’ve only been doing it for a week. We’re excited.”
Mayor Andress said Adams helped the city navigate the transition away from a mayor-council form of government.
“That’s right, that’s right. And he was,” the mayor said. “He got us through the budget process. He got regular meetings put in place where the department heads were meeting on a weekly basis. He put some structure in place that we didn’t have before. That was a great addition to the way we do business here.
“Now, Cale is in that role, and Cale knows the city inside and out,” Andress said. “He’s been our city engineer for over four and a half years. It’s a great fit for him moving forward as acting city manager.”
Senior civil engineer Amy Zari is currently serving as acting city engineer.
Andress said there is no set timetable yet for filling either the city manager or city engineer position permanently.
“TBD,” she said. “We’ll figure out what the process looks like where you open up the city manager position. We haven’t done that yet but Nick Sims (a returning councilman) and I’ve talked in theory about it. We’ll talk with the other councilors about that, opening that up and seeing what interest we get.”
Other changes in city personnel include the arrival of accountants from Carr Riggs and Ingram, a firm that has worked with Homewood in the past.
“Which they have done for us in the past,” the mayor said, “when we went through our unfortunate situation with our last finance director.”
Former finance director Robert Burgett was sentenced on April 30 to 37 months in federal prison for embezzling nearly $1 million from the city. He pleaded guilty on Oct. 23 to three counts of wire fraud.
Carr, Riggs & Ingram will monitor Homewood’s finances until a new finance director is hired.
“That’ll be the next priority,” Andress said. “We’ve got an HR position coming, an HR director. Those interviews are taking place right now. Finance director will be the very next priority. I think it’s already open.”
A new era of Homewood city government officially launched Nov. 10 as Andress chaired her first committee of the whole and council meetings.
The new mayor admitted to some nerves during her first steps, wondering aloud during the committee meeting if an action should move immediately to the night’s council agenda.
Andress said she found comfort in Smith, the acting city manager, along with her fellow council members and two city attorneys.
“Having this crew, even though it’s new, it’s exciting, and everybody is here for it,” Andress said. “It was different, but it felt great. Having all the department heads here and just being so supportive, as usual, was wonderful.
“The procedure is different, trying to get a handle on that,” she said. “But I think you’ll see in a couple of meetings that that’ll smooth out.”
