The Emporia Gazette

February 13, 2012

• Headlines
• Sports
• Forums
• Weather
• Classifieds

• Help
• Log in
• Home

• E-mail story
• Post a comment
• iPod friendly version

Emporia’s new city manager has already avoided his first storm.

“I seem to have gone around it, from what I hear,” said Zimmerman, who reached Emporia on Saturday after most of the area’s snow was safely melted. “That comes from watching the Weather Channel. I knew to go through Iowa instead of Missouri.”

Zimmerman walked in the door at 8:01 this morning ready for work. And there’s a lot ahead of him. These first few days on the job for the new arrival from Prospect Heights, Ill., will mostly be meetings — with department heads, with Emporia State University President Michael Lane, with the chamber of commerce and Emporia Main Street.

And of course, there’s a new city commission to get used to, including two brand-new faces. Zimmerman’s already had the chance to meet informally with one new city commissioner — Jeff Longbine sold him a new car over the weekend.

Once he’s settled in, Zimmerman said, one of the first orders of business will be hiring a police chief. The position has been vacant since mid-December, when Chief Mike Heffron retired and moved to Albuquerque, N.M. Deputy Chief Mike Lopez has been the acting chief.

“The police chief’s role is very, very important in a community and sets the tone for how the department is going to operate,” Zimmerman said.

That’s especially true, he said, because most citizens mainly encounter the police when something goes wrong.

“You want to make sure you hire someone sensitive,” he said. “A communicator and a listener, not a ‘rules are rules’ kind of guy.”

Zimmerman, 46, has been a city chief executive since 1993, until now entirely in Illinois. He has been city administrator of Prospect Heights since 2003.

There are still a few personal things to take care of as he settles in. The car’s a done deal, but Zimmerman and his wife, Valerie, don’t close on their house until May. Until that happens, the Zimmermans are living at Candlewood Suites.

Part of the weekend has been spent checking out the churches — he’s Catholic, she’s Mormon — and the city’s restaurants. So far, the Zimmermans have eaten at Shanghai Restaurant, El Palenque and Village Inn. Others will follow.

Once he’s gotten his feet on the ground, it’ll be time for Zimmerman and the commission to plunge into budget season. That, he said, will be where he really gets a sense of the goals and needs of the community.

“The budget, in my opinion, is probably the most important document of the city,” he said. “That’s where the commission gets the chance to tell us, the staff, and the 30,000 residents of Emporia what the priorities are for the year.”

All of which has to be done by August, by the way.

“We’ll have to get moving on it,” Zimmerman said.