[caption id="attachment_137113" align="alignright" width="460"] Anthony Snipes[/caption]

Missouri City City Manager Anthony Snipes has seen every level of local government up close. After working as Austin’s assistant city manager for two years, he was hired to replace Ed Broussard in Missouri City last year. Broussard left to become city manager in Tyler, which launched an eight-month recruiting process for Missouri City.

Snipes started with Missouri City on Dec. 1. He has a bachelor’s degree in political science and sociology from Mercer University and a master’s degree in public administration from Florida State University. Originally from Americus, Georgia, he worked in several Texas communities for 15 years before moving to Fort Bend County.

Describe the mood of the city when you started here.

[Last year] for Missouri City was a banner year. We were recognized as one of the top 50 places to live [by Nerdwallet.com], we received a $500,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services and the Scenic City Certification Program of Scenic Texas recognized us.

How have you spent your first two months as city manager?

I talked with [city] council members about their priorities. We ended up driving around individually in their districts so that they could tell me from their vantage point what are the opportunities, what are the challenges. I asked them each to provide me with a list of people in the community I should meet. I met every city department in the first 60 days and asked them what they would like to see for the community.