Beaumont Assistant City Manager, Operations, June Ellis.
Courtesy of the City of Beaumont
Beaumont Enterprise
Olivia Malick
Beaumont's executive office has a new face.
Last week, June Ellis began his new role as assistant city manager over operations, joining the team headed by City Manager Kenneth Williams and Assistant City Manager over Community Services Chris Boone.
In his new role, Ellis will oversee city departments and divisions including information technology, finance, public works, water and sewer, solid waste, parks ground and maintenance and highway and median maintenance, among others, according to a news release from the city.
Ellis also will be tasked with spearheading key city projects as assigned by Williams.
Ellis and Williams previously worked together in Buda, Texas where Ellis served as finance director while Williams was city manager.
"I've worked with (Ellis) before, and his financial acumen, strategic planning and relationship-building will be a huge asset to the city of Beaumont," Williams said in the news release. "We're lucky to have him."
Ellis' hiring was announced alongside Boone's in November, and he comes to Beaumont from Haskell, Texas where he most recently served as city manager.
A native Texan, Ellis is from the small East Texas community Lovelady, located about two-and-a-half hours from Beaumont in Houston County.
While he's held many roles in various Texas municipality governments, Ellis started his journey in local government 26 years ago in Detroit, Michigan, he said in an interview with the city's communications department.
"During my 10 years there, I worked in the budget department and quickly advanced from a junior governmental analyst to a budget manager," Ellis said in the interview. "At the city of Detroit, I gained my initial vision of becoming a leader in municipal government. It taught me the basics of being a civil servant and how important we are in the functioning of municipal government."
Since then, Ellis has worked in other Texas cities such as Pearland, Missouri City and Sugar Land.
"While working for the city of Pearland, I played an important role in helping the city secure a developer for the hugely popular and successful Pearland Town Center," Ellis said. "As budget officer, I worked alongside the finance director to provide valuable financial data of the city to the executive director of the Pearland Economic Development Corporation, which in turn was key in effectuating an agreement to build the Town Center."
Ellis said he believes the experience he's had in various city governments will be beneficial to his role in Beaumont.
"I feel that I can bring my experience from my work at various cities to help (Beaumont) grow, develop and become more prosperous," he said. "I want to have an immediate impact on the city of Beaumont. I am a collaborator and want to forge strong relationships with stakeholders within the community, including elected officials at the local, state and federal levels, county officials, the school district, community organizations and others to help move Beaumont forward."
Boosting Beaumont's economic development is a key vision for Ellis.
"All cities desire to be a destination city or a city where their residents can live, work and play," he said. "One of the goals here is to continue to build the type of community where you have sustained economic development, a solid employment base and opportunities, easy access to shopping and other services, great quality of life and lifestyle programs."
That includes downtown economic development as well, Ellis said.
"Downtown is the heart of any city," he said. "By boosting development downtown and creating opportunities for businesses to grow and flourish, we will help make Beaumont a city everyone desires to visit and relocate to."
In his first month as assistant city manager over operations, Ellis said he wants to focus on building relationships and team building among staff.
"It's important to have a strong team that communicates and collaborates," he said. "Within 90 days, I want to have established the type of relationships that create better opportunities for Beaumont. These relationships will be with local officials, state and federal officials, county officials, local businesses, community organizations and other who seek to collaborate on the mission to improve and grow Beaumont and make this a better city for everyone."
Ellis was originally slated to begin his new role Jan. 3, but, according to Beaumont Director of Communications Lauren Monitz, was so excited about the position that he settled in sooner and got right to work.
"The opportunity to positively impact the city of Beaumont excites me more than anything else," he said.
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