"The finance director had asked me to advertise it as `male help wanted,'" Norris recalls.  She also remembers the answer she was given when she asked why:

"Well, nobody would listen to a female supervisor."

That response didn't come as a shock to Norris, but it didn't deter her either.

"At the time when I was growing up, most women were teachers and nurses and secretaries," she says. "There were more limited opportunities for women."

"But I wanted to be the boss," she says with a laugh.

Last month Linda Norris was selected by Salem City Council and Mayor Janet Taylor for the post of city manager, ending the city's nationwide search that had culminated in eight candidates. She had been serving as interim city manager since October 2007, when she was appointed following the announced retirement of Bob Wells. In a press release issued by the city on Thursday, June 19, Mayor Taylor said: "City Council has recognized that Linda Norris has the talent and outstanding leadership style to keep Salem moving forward. I could not be happier."

For Norris, it is another milestone in a decades-long career devoted to human resources and public administration that began in Colorado in 1968 and led to Oregon 20 years later. After several years working for the cities of Fort Collins and Greeley, Colo., in 1988 she moved to Eugene, where she worked in the city's human resources department for three years before serving as assistant city manager until 1997.

After several years in the private sector in Eugene, in December 2004 Norris returned to public life, once again as assistant city manager, this time for Salem. The transition was made especially tough by the fact that she routinely had to commute from Eugene for the first 10 months while struggling to find a house in a tight Salem housing market.

"There were pretty long days," she says.

Norris attributes her passion for community and for public administration to her father, a farmer who served on federal Works Progress Administration work crews during the Great Depression. He came away from his experience, she says, with a heightened appreciation for the ways that a government can help its citizens.

"Working in government is a great career," Norris remembers her father saying.

However, ensuring government services for all of Salem's citizens is proving especially difficult these days in light of the slowing national economy. Toward the end of last year, it became increasingly apparent that city revenue would fall well short of projections, Norris says. What had been forecast as a $2.5 million budget shortfall for the upcoming year ballooned to $5.5 million.

There was very little time for analysis, she says, and in April Norris was forced to propose a budget to city council with drastic cuts to city spending and services like community recreation programs.

It likely will not be the last time Norris comes to council bearing bad news.

"I anticipate we will have another two or three years" of belt-tightening, she says.

In both good times and bad, a city must cope with
diminished resources while maintaining the services the community wants.

"My job is to find the most efficient, effective way to do that," Norris says.

One source of the trouble is that half of the city's general funds, which pay for police, fire, library and city administrative services, derive from property taxes that have been limited by a 3 percent cap on assessed value growth since 1997, a result of Measure 50.

"Right now we don't collect as much property tax as it costs to operate just the police and fire departments," Norris says.

What has made the situation worse is that the slower economy, hampered by higher gas prices and the rise in cost of living, has diminished the other revenue sources that supplement the general fund.

Gas prices have also directly impacted the budget itself -- $558,000 was recently added to keep the city's service vehicles operating next year.

"It's getting to be such a large part of cost in our operating budgets," Norris says.

Among other things, cuts in the proposed budget would affect plans to relocate the headquarters for Salem Police, currently cramped in City Hall. The city council commissioned a design for a new facility, but according to Norris, construction will not be able to start for at least the next few years.

There are still some positive signs, though. Urban renewal areas remain active, especially the riverfront downtown area, Norris says. The city's "toolbox" loan program for distributing funds for private redevelopment activities has been affected by the nationwide credit crisis, she admits, but urban renewal projects are continuing to spur economic development and rehabilitation, she says.

For Linda Norris, running a city is a very personal endeavor. Decisions on dollars and departments make a difference, especially in a community as vocal about its civic issues as Salem.

"We see that impact on citizens every day," she says. "It's one of the best parts of working in local government."

And according to Norris, there's a benefit to working for Salem, as well as an added reason for hope during the downturn.

"We have a wonderful staff," she says. "I've been, since I've been here, just incredibly impressed at how much we get done with our limited resources."
"It's a pretty creative, fast-moving organization here," she says. "I feel very proud to work here."