Kalamazoo upbringing prepped
Dame for local public service

Editor's note: This week GrossePointeToday.com presents a series of profiles of the chief executives in our municipalities–the city managers.

For many people, figuring out what they want to be when they grow up takes some time. Peter Dame always knew he wanted to enter politics.

“It was ingrained in me at an early age,” said Dame, 43. “It was all I was ever interested in and wanted to do.”

Politics runs in the Dame family. He grew up in Kalamazoo, where his mother was active in local politics. She volunteered in city elections and with the Kalamazoo County GOP for almost 30 years.

“There was a sense of contributing to the community through public service,” said Dame.

Dame studied government at the University of Michigan and earned a bachelor’s degree in history, a field he chose because he thought it was important to study something practical. His first job took him to the nation's capital.

“I was lucky enough to get a job working for a local congressman, Fred Upton, in Washington D.C.,” said Dame. He started out answering phones and fetching mail, but by the end of five and a half years, he was director of legislative projects.

“It was a great job,” said Dame.

At the same time he attended night school, earning a master’s in public administration from George Washington University. He also married his wife, Christine. But he burned out on politics, and wanted to be more involved with public service.

“The idea was to get into actual government service and at the same time I got married so we also wanted to move back to the Midwest because my wife is from Illinois,” said Dame.

He and his wife, Christine, moved to her home state in 1994 and Dame became the deputy village manager of Oak Park, a suburb of Chicago. He worked in city management there for 12 years before he was named the city manager of Grosse Pointe in March 2008.

“This opportunity came up; it’s a great community and Grosse Pointe is very similar to Oak Park,” said Dame. Since he started the job most of his time has been spent getting the village through the economic transition.

“It’s been a major challenge for the whole (city) still and it needs to undergo a transition for the next 30 years,” said Dame.
Right now community leaders are trying to meet the goals of their master plan. There are a number of projects in the works that Dame believes will enhance the Village for years to come.  

“We are going to tear down the old Kroger building and put up a new two-story building that will be much more attractive,” said Dame. 

City management would like to see more of that kind of in-fill development. They would like to create more density in the village in the hopes that it will bring more developers to the area.

“We have a very walkable downtown where you can play, shop and eat,” said Dame. “People can recreate and live because of residential construction downtown.

“We have a lot of fun projects and it is really exciting but it’s also time consuming. It’s not something that’s going to happen overnight.”

The next two years will be a challenging time for the budget, as declining property values crimp tax receipts. There are new businesses coming to the area, however. An art gallery opened in January and a new restaurant, called Burger Pointe, opened in the Village.

“It’s a challenge every year. Expectations don’t go down but the revenues aren’t there,” Dame said. “It’s a matter of setting priorities.”

Though he has a full schedule, life is not all work for Dame. His three children, ages 11, 9 and 4, take up much of his free time. He is active in his son’s Little League and his oldest daughter plays soccer year round. When it comes to watching sports that don’t involve his kids, Dame can be found watching the football and hockey teams from UM. He used to play softball until a knee injury forced him to give up the sport.

“I recently took up walking, but free time–it’s almost always something with the kids.”

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