A little more than two years ago, the city was in the unenviable position of having to fill three top-level leadership positions: police chief, parks superintendent, and schools superintendent. This historic intersection of bureaucratic fumbling produced three controversial hiring decisions: Police Chief William McManus, schools superintendent Thandiwe Peebles, and parks superintendent Jon Gurban.

Today, only Gurban remains, which must strike him as deliciously ironic. You may recall the circumstances accompanying his hiring: how the finalists dropped out of contention and a small group of Park Board commissioners brought him through a back room deal that roiled the agency and sparked a two-year reform movement. Meanwhile, Peebles recently resigned in order to avoid being fired and McManus last week announced he was fleeing the “uncertainty” of his position here for the more secure environs of San Antonio.

Both Peebles and McManus fell victim to their inability to communicate with those policy makers who held their future in their hands: the School Board in Peebles case; the City Council in McManus’s. It was more complicated than that, of course: Neither Peebles nor McManus were particularly accessible--or friendly--to the media, both had an autocratic streak that didn’t play well with underlings, and neither of them ever seemed particularly comfortable in Minneapolis.

Gurban is hardly the Great Communicator; he has a tendency to move ahead with bold initiatives without notifying some of those most affected by the idea. Most recently, it was his agreement to buy the Edison Hockey Arena--a decision that appeared to surprise some park commissioners. But what Gurban has that Peebles and McManus did not is a solid relationship with a majority of his governing board. No matter how many missteps he may make, he knows he’ll almost always have the support of five of the nine commissioners.

The lesson for the incoming police chief and schools superintendent is clear: If you want to stick around in your new job for a while, don’t avoid the people who put you there.