Photo by Linda Harris Steubenville native Jim Mavromatis, seated, prepares for his upcoming retirement with wife, Babette.

STEUBENVILLE — For the past 10 years Jim Mavromatis has known exactly where he was going to be every Tuesday night — sitting in council chambers, listening to city officials, department heads and the general public discuss what’s going on in Steubenville, what needs fixed and how to pay for it.

That’s all changing.

Mavromatis, 74, is retiring after 10 years as city manager. His last official day on the job will be March 31, though he’s already easing out of his managerial role as his successor, Mike Johnson, transitions into the city’s top spot

“I have mixed emotions,” he said during a luncheon Monday in his honor in the Pugliese Room. “You put 10 years of your life into something, and you see the results here. This is a great city, we have a lot of great citizens, but the reason this job was made easy for me is because the employees of the city of Steubenville — they knew what their jobs were, the limitations we had to work with. The funding stream has been tight for the last two to three years, but they’ve always managed to get the job done. And like any city, it’s only as good as the employees you have and the citizens–that’s what makes a city and that’s why Steubenville is where it’s at today.”

Running a city, he said, is a partnership.

“It’s what your citizens believe that your city can do and your workers knowing they have someone that will stand behind them and give them the tools they need to do the job, and the job gets done,’ he said.

One of the hardest parts of the job, especially in a town that’s had a shrinking tax base, is finding the funds to get things done.

“But it’s a fairly simple matter — you either have the money or you don’t,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of citizens contribute their own time and labor, and sometimes materials. What a lot of people don’t understand is in a city of this size, you have a lot of businesses that are out there that are willing to help people. They don’t want any fanfare, but if you need help, they’re there.”

He admits he’s “shocked [he] lasted 10 years from a political standpoint.”

“But when you’re working and it’s busy, time goes by fast and that’s exactly what’s happened,” he said. “There’s been so many things that have gone on in this city where we’ve made it better. When I look back at the different things that have happened while I’ve been here, we’ve always pushed this city to become better…We have the finest educational system in place, it’s one of the best in the state, if not the United States. Crime is down, really down. You’re always going to have crime in the city, but it’s nothing like we had years ago and that’s a credit to our safety forces here — it’s a credit to the citizens here who’ve helped solve many crimes by calling in with information that they have. That’s built on trust, it was built over time, and with my prior experience in law enforcement, it was easy from that standpoint.”

Mavromatis, a Steubenville native, joined city government in 2016 after spending 22 years with the Drug Enforcement Agency — more than six of them in its intelligence division — before retiring. Prior to that, he spent 12 years with the Phoenix Police Department and did a tour in Iraq, advising the U.S. military on law enforcement matters.

He said coming home was an easy decision for him and his wife, Babette.

“Mom was still here, I was born and raised here, my wife was born and raised here,” he said. “This was our home. No matter where we lived in this country, Steubenville, Ohio, was still our home, and this is where we wanted to be.”

Now, though, he said it’s about “spending time with my wife.”

“She has always supported me on every endeavor I have taken on,” he said. “I couldn’t have a better partner, and it’s time that I take care of her. It didn’t matter if I came home at three o’clock in the morning from the job, she’d be there and if I wanted something to eat, she’d put something together. That’s the type of person she is. I could not have done anything without her, that’s always on my mind right now–whatever she wants, she’s earned that–we’ll have been married 45 years this August, and she’s always been there, always supported me…No man can do the job that I did without the support of their family.”

He said he has no qualms about turning the reins over to Johnson.

“The best thing council did was [to give] us a two-week turnover,” he said, “And, No. 2, they hired a person that was born and raised here, who lives here and his roots are here. That will make his job much easier — he has credibility just walking into the office. I’m glad they did that. There are a lot of candidates from outside [they could have hired] who have good qualities, but that’s what was missing. If you go back and look at the history of our past city managers, that’s been a problem, there was no connection here.”

He said his advice to Johnson is to remember “the most valuable commodity you have is your employees — they will handle any issue as long as they have the equipment that they need and the backing of management. They’ll make this city what it’s supposed to be.”