Star-Journbal Editor
Following a painstaking, four-month search to replace fired city administrator Steve Garrett, a replacement with the unlikely name of Paine has been hired to relieve the pounding, tension headache at Hillsboro City Hall.
A delighted Mayor Delores Dalke announced Friday that Lawrence (Larry) Paine, 60, will be the new city administrator.
Paine's first day at work will be July 23, after he completes a 60-day severance agreement in his present job as city manager in Concordia, located 108 miles north of Hillsboro.
Paine was offered the job back on May 1, but asked Dalke not to make a formal announcement until after he told Concordia officials Friday he was leaving there after four years.
"You have no idea how much I have been looking forward to this announcement," Dalke said. "I just wish it was July 23.
Dalke and the rest of the city council were looking to hire someone, preferably from a larger city, who could "bring knowledge to us, to lead us on to where we need to go," she said.
Merry Christmas, mayor.
"We got exactly who I was hoping to get," Dalke said. "With his experience he will come in and give us a lot of guidance.
"I'm thrilled!"
Paine will receive $76,804 per year in Hillsboro, the same salary he was making in Concordia, Dalke said.
"Basically it's the same contract [that Garrett had with the city], but the pay is different, based on his experience."
Garrett's annual salary was more than $65,000 by the time he was let go. Like Garrett, Paine will receive a car allowance, and the city will pay his dues to join the Lions or Kiwanis clubs.
Paine came to Concordia in 2003 from Baldwin City, where he was city manager from 1998 to 2003. Before moving to Kansas, Paine was city manager at Cave Creek, Ariz.
The search for a new city administrator in Hillsboro was made necessary when former city administrator Steve Garrett was dismissed Jan. 23.
Garrett spent six years in Hillsboro, and can take credit for his role in the new Hillsboro Family Aquatics Center, and the water plant improvement project. But his abrasive style and a series of bad performance reviews led to his dismissal.
The search process that brought Garrett's replacement was orchestrated by Mark Tomb, a paid consultant from the League Executive Administration Search (LEAPS) program of the League of Kansas Municipalities.
Because neither the council nor the mayor had the time or know-how to conduct a thorough job search, the city has paid about $4,000 for Tomb's expertise. Tomb wrote the job description after polling council members to see what they were looking for.
In addition to the requisite education and experience, the council also specified that the next city administrator must be able to prove he or she can get along well with subordinates, elected officials, and the public.
Tomb submitted a list of about a dozen top candidates to be interviewed by the council, but then skipped that step when two of the applicants far out-shone the rest, Dalke said.
They were interviewed April 21, but the council was reluctant to make a decision between the two "outstanding" candidates.
With the end-of-April deadline fast approaching, Dalke asked council members to spend the next week mulling over the city's problems, and to consider which candidate could solve them.
After running the city for four months with no administrator, they had become well aware of the problems. After Garrett's firing Jan. 24, Dalke and the council assumed many of his day to day duties.
The morning after the firing, Dalke met with the city's six department heads and the city clerk to establish a set of temporary ground rules. She told each department to run their own departments, and stay within their budgets.
Running the city in crisis mode was more difficult for the council because state open meetings laws prevented them from meeting together, or even talking on the phone, between meetings. To cope, several special meetings were called.
Over time, it was clear that the foundering city would not fail, mainly because the department heads had come to the rescue.
"This group is just amazing the way they are coming through, helping me; explaining things," Dalke said. "I never, ever could have imagined that they would take over so well.
"Everybody is stepping up and I'm really, really proud of them."
On May 1 the council was in full agreement that Paine was the obvious first choice, and asked him back for an unusual final interview.
But instead of grilling him with more questions, Paine was given an opportunity to meet with each department head, and to have lunch with members of the Hillsboro Development Corporation.
"[The next city administrator] needs to have a degree of comfort with our community," Dalke said. "They need to be able to know that we'll be a fit for them, too.
"[The department heads] who talked to me were all very impressed with him," Dalke added. "That he would be somebody who could show them better ways to do things was the comment I heard form more than one city department head."
A native of Oakland, Calif., Paine holds a bachelor's degree in public administration 1969 from San Jose State University. He was drafted into the Army while in his first year of graduate school. He served as an infantry officer and public information officer from 1970-73, but did not leave the U.S.
Paine returned to college in 1975 to earn a master's degree in public administration from the University Puget Sound in Tacoma, Wash.
He taught classes in governmental budgeting at Puget Sound, and later at Northern Arizona University at Yuma. He presently is an seminar instructor for the League of Kansas Municipalities.
Paine and his wife, Susan, have two adult children, Brock, 23, and Brynn, 21. Both are technical writing graduates from Cedarville University, a Baptist school in Ohio. The Paines are evangelical Christians, he said.
Susan, who works at a home health care agency in Concordia, scouted downtown Hillsboro on April 21, while her husband was being interviewed at city hall.
Paine said both he and his wife eager to come to Hillsboro.
"She's very impressed with it," Paine said. "She was pleased to see a coffee shop there, and that Christian bookstore."
Perhaps the biggest pain Paine will be expected to deal with is the financial pain caused by the April 25 fire at the Hillsboro Business Development Complex. The first estimate to clean up the building was $440,000.
Paine says eager to help the mayor and city council find a solution to the problem.
"I knew about that building, I knew about the fire, I knew that it was uninsured," he said. "It's important not to get too wrapped up with the size of these types of problems.
"They might seem like mountains, but there are always footholds and handholds to hang onto, to help you deal with it as you climb over."
Dalke says Paine's can-do attitude is but one of several positive the attributes he brings to the job, and that taking such pains to find him was worth it.
"This might sound like a slow process," the mayor said, "but we're hiring the person who is going to lead us on for years ahead.
"I am a happier mayor," she added.
