The top City of Jefferson official is getting ready to step away from his leadership role.

Mike Palmer has been the city administrator for the last 15 years. He grew up in the quad cities on the Illinois side. Palmer spent a total of 20 years as city administrator in two different states, including Florida and Colorado, before landing in Jefferson. He tells Raccoon Valley Radio some of the major accomplishments he was a part of came within the first couple of years as Jefferson city administrator with the completion of the overpass bridge on Iowa Highway 4 and the downtown streetscape. Palmer points out once those projects were done, he saw a change in the culture of the city.

“It did create an atmosphere throughout the community, I think, where people were like, ‘We can participate, we’re going to be heard.’ And so you saw more volunteers come forward. Now you’ve seen the young people come forward. It’s just self-feeding (and) it’s just great to see what’s going on.”     

Palmer notes other things that he saw various city councils do is their continued commitment to improving the downtown area, including a $1 million Community Development Block Grant to renovate several exterior building facades.

“And that’s something that they worked very hard to get done and spent a lot of money doing it, and it shows to this day. They brought on Main Street (Iowa) they backed that up, they backed up some of these other ideas like Thomas Jefferson Gardens. More of the complete downtown (look) is what they were after.”  

Palmer appreciates all of the city employees, as well as the staff, mayors and city councils that he’s worked with over the years that have allowed Jefferson to be progressive and always moving forward. He adds he wants to travel and will stay to live out his retirement years in Jefferson with his wife Sherry, who is also retired. Palmer officially retires on July 7th. Scott Peterson has replaced Palmer as the new city administrator.