After 25 years of service to the city of Delaware, Tom Homan is set to retire from his role as city manager today.

Homan, the longest-tenured city manager in the city’s history, announced his intention last August and will be replaced by Paul Brake, who was named Homan’s successor last month.

While Homan’s retirement brings to a close a nearly three-decade stint in Delaware, his career spans beyond his time in Ohio. A 1984 graduate of New York University, Homan’s interest in local government was initially sparked by an internship in Croton-on-Hudson in New York’s lower Hudson Valley. He went on to work in the village of Sleepy Hollow in New York before taking the town manager position in Killingly, Connecticut, where he served for nearly 11 years.

When the position became available in Delaware, Homan said the city was an enticing place to be but not without its share of challenges given the changes it was starting to experience.

“It was growing. It was just starting to feel the effects of that growth,” Homan told The Gazette. “Delaware has always been an attractive place for families to live, and the scope of that (growth) was not what it is today. What interested me was just the conversations I had with community members before I took the position. To a person, how much pride there was in Delaware, how much genuine love for the community and interest for the community, and a real desire to see Delaware improve. Over the course of my tenure, we’ve been able to see that happen in so many different ways, none of which could have occurred without the city council, the community support, and all the different pieces that go into making those things happen.”

While Delaware may have been growing when he arrived in 1999, Homan said he never could have imagined the extent of the change and growth the city has experienced throughout his tenure. Homan referenced an article in The Gazette he once saw featuring an interview with the then-city manager who would ultimately become his predecessor. In the article, one of the themes was the pressures of the growth Delaware was beginning to feel as production builders such as M/I Homes and Dominion came to Delaware.

“When I got here, that was really one of the issues that the council identified, how to make growth help pay for itself,” Homan said. “Growth is never going to pay for itself 100% but how could we put in place the tools and measures that would help harness that growth in a positive way?

“To this day, with the enactment of impact fees — we were one of the first communities in the state to do that — and we brought in over $17 million in capacity fees, and just our smart-growth principals I think have made the growth, as challenging as it is for residents, I think we’ve done it in a more responsible way. If that means making sure you have bike path connections, making sure you have parks that are walkable within neighborhoods, making sure you have good services, all of those things are what I think is one of the hallmarks of this community.”

Among his proudest achievements during his tenure is the opening of the Delaware Community Center YMCA, which has grown through the years to now offer even more than what was originally expected.

“That was a unique partnership between the YMCA, the National Guard, the community of Delaware that passed a levy in 2008, and the City,” Homan said of the community center. “That was a project that was well in place before I got here but we were able to kind of bring together a unique partnership in collaboration with the National Guard and the YMCA. Today, that facility is one of the heartbeats of the community.”

Homan said another project that may have gone largely unnoticed but he’s no less proud of is the upgrading of the city’s water plant to “ensure quality drinking water for our residents” by utilizing a membrane filtration system he called “very innovative.” He added that repurposing a City facility to open the Unity Community Center on Ross Street was “very unique.”

Other projects he is most fond of include the consolidation of the 911 center with Delaware County, which Homan said took “a lot of effort and a lawsuit” but ultimately created a 911 center for the community that is “second to none,” as well as the completion of Sawmill Parkway that is soon to be connected to Section Line Road and is expected to open thousands of acres for economic development in the city.

Although the list of accomplishments Homan has played an integral role in is extensive, his departure comes at a critical time for the community as the City makes its second push to get a levy passed that would increase the income tax rate to address revenue shortfalls for capital improvements.

Homan said he doesn’t lament the timing of his decision because he plans to remain an active member of the community. And while Homan may no longer be leading the charge from a desk at City Hall, he said he doesn’t intend to stop his efforts to educate the public on the desperate need for additional funding.

“Hopefully, as a citizen, I can advocate because I still believe it’s an important investment in the community,” he said. “Perhaps I can help in a different way. Paul (Brake) has experience in passing levies, and so I think he can add value to that particular issue, and I look forward to seeing that.”

As for his decision to retire and why now feels like the right time to step away, Homan said it boils down to wanting to allocate all of his time to family as he grows older.

“Because I’m 66 years old and have two grandchildren,” Homan said of the timing. “I want to spend more time with them and with my wife and family members. I have aging parents. I just want more time to experience the things you can’t experience when you’re doing this work. This is very intense work that never lets up. You’re never really off the grid. But I still want to contribute to local government, so I intend to stay involved but just in different ways and, obviously, not at the same pace.”

In the time since Brake’s hire was announced, Homan said his focus has shifted more towards the transition in leadership than the issues and projects at hand. Occasionally, he’s still had to jump back in and address some issues which has served as a stark reminder of the pace required to do the job effectively.

“It’s funny because the last few weeks, I’ve found myself in that mode where I’m just not taking on as much, which makes sense because I’m transitioning out,” he said. “But a couple of times, I’ve had to jump back into issues and attend to them, and it felt like, ‘Oh, wow. This is intense. Is this the pace I’ve been running at for years?’”

The decision to announce his retirement a year in advance was out of respect for the City Council and the large task it had in trying to find the right person to take over the role, Homan said.

“Having been through so many high-level, executive-level recruitments as a manager, I know those things always take more time than you’d expect,” Homan said. “And this type of position, given the scope of a nationwide search, it just requires that time … And I also wanted to ensure there was some transition with the new manager coming in. Paul started with me a week and a half ago, and as of (today), I will have had two weeks with him. He’s attended a number of meetings with me. I’ve briefed him on the issues and projects to just make him feel a little more acclimated to the work. I didn’t have that when I started in 1999.”

Homan said the ability to turn off the part of him that, for years, has been so in-tune with everything going on in the city is a psychological matter he believes he’s set himself up well to handle because he knows the city is in a good place. Homan added that it will help that he will still have the benefit of watching several projects he’s played a role in, such as the new fire station and the Point reconstruction, finish up without having the angst of having to worry about all the “behind-the-scenes stuff.”

“Sure, I’m going to miss it,” Homan later said. “But I also know I will enjoy not having to do it. It’s hard work but it’s rewarding and great to see the community grow and be a part of all of that. But there are times to step back from things and now is that time for me.”

Reach Dillon Davis at 740-413-0904. Follow him on Twitter @DillonDavis56.