Matt Zimmerman of Prospect Heights, Ill., will be the next city manager of Emporia.
The Emporia city commission called Zimmerman to offer him the job this morning at $115,000 a year. Zimmerman accepted instantly.
“I think Matt Zimmerman will bring enthusiasm and excitement to this position,” Mayor Jim Kessler said. “I think that was the key thing. We certainly had qualified candidates all the way down. That made it a difficult proposition.”
“I liked his enthusiasm and genuineness,” Commissioner Tom Myers agreed. “He didn’t have a lot of pretension. He’s just a genuine, enthusiastic, great guy.”
Zimmerman’s contract calls for him to give 45 days notice before taking a job elsewhere. However, he told the city commission this morning that he may be able to start by Monday, April 16, if his city council agrees.
He and his wife, Valerie, will come to Emporia over the St. Patrick’s Day weekend to look for houses.
Zimmerman said this morning that he was excited to take the job.
“When I talked with the mayor at Prospect Heights , he said he had talked with several people about Emporia, because his daughter goes to KU,” Zimmerman said. “He said, ‘These are the most pleasant people — why wouldn’t you want to take it?’”
He said his first priority would be to work with the commission and the department heads to set goals so that the budget could be completed in a timely manner.
Zimmerman is the city administrator of Prospect Heights, Ill. Valerie Zimmerman, is completing a bachelor’s degree and hopes to finish it at Emporia State University.
Zimmerman began working as a city manager in Illinois in 1993, first at Manhattan, then at Elburn and finally at Prospect Heights. Prospect Heights itself is a new city of about 17,000 that recently celebrated its 30th anniversary.
This will be his first job outside Illinois.
Myers said that he and his own wife had dinner with the Zimmermans and that he was equally impressed with both of them.
“His wife is just a warm and genuinely delightful person,” Myers said. “There’s always a place for the city manager’s wife in the social aspects of the job, so that was definitely a plus.”
Emporia’s prospects for commercial and industrial development attracted Zimmerman to the job. His visit to Emporia last week impressed him with the city’s willingness to develop as a team, rather than pitting downtown against other regions in town.
At a forum last Tuesday, he described his management style as a participatory one, trying to get advice from all the departments that might be affected by a decision. But leadership, he said, went further.
“If you have a good hard-working staff, you need to show them you know what you’re doing, that you’re committed to getting the work done and that you’ll work the long hours, too,” he said at a Tuesday night forum in Emporia. “You need to show them you’re just as much there as they are.”
He holds a master’s degree in public administration from Northern Illinois University.
“We’re very excited and very pleased to have you move to Emporia,” Kessler told him on the phone.
“It’s been an interesting experience, hasn’t it?” Myers said as the meeting wound up.
“I can say with much certainty that I will never go through this process again,” chuckled City Commissioner Ray Toso, who leaves office this April.
“I will say with much certainty that I hope to never go through this again,” City Commissioner Bob Agler agreed with a laugh.