After almost 15 years, the city of Jefferson will have a new city administrator.

At this past Tuesday’s city council meeting, City Administrator Mike Palmer announced his retirement, effective July 7, 2023. The Personnel Committee received three proposals from recruiting firms and the City Council approved their recommendation to hire Midwest Municipal Consulting. Council member Harry Ahrenholtz serves on the Personnel Committee and expressed what he liked about Midwest Municipal.

“We looked at the placements that this company has had with towns our size, and they’ve been quite successful. I also like their timeline, the work plan that they put forward as far as what they propose to do for the process.” 

The company’s founder and president Elizabeth Hansen has 18 years of local government experience, including being a former Jefferson City Administrator, which City Attorney David Morain said she knows the city better than the other applicants. Council member Pat Zmolek also serves on the Personnel Committee and talked about another important aspect when considering the proposals from the different firms.

“We thought it was pretty important to keep the search firm as an Iowa-based firm just because of the knowledge that they have of the people in Iowa. If you get somebody from New York City how are they going to know anybody that’s in Iowa or have a good background on them. So that’s kind of why we limited our search.”

Palmer believes the city is on an upward trajectory.

“Jefferson’s a great place. There’s a lot going on. It’s so, so important (to) just keep all this energy uninterrupted. Jefferson’s a great place, my wife and I are planning on staying here too.”

Morain added that by starting the search now, they can keep to the proposed timeline and have a new person hired in April of 2023 so that there is a seamless transition to the new city administrator.