By Brenda Erdahl
The City of Maple Lake is on the hunt for a new city administrator with the resignation of Renee Eckerly at the Tuesday, Jan. 16 regular council meeting.
Eckerly, who has been the city administrator for Maple Lake since July of 2021, submitted her resignation at Tuesday’s meeting and councilors accepted it on a 4-1 vote with councilor John Haack opposed. Her last day is Friday, Feb. 16.
In light of the news, councilors decided to cancel a special, closed meeting that had been scheduled for Thursday, January 18 for Eckerly’s performance review. Instead, they set a new special meeting for Wednesday, Jan. 24 to discuss the process for finding and hiring a new city administrator.
At another special meeting scheduled for Wednesday, Jan. 31, after the Messenger’s deadline, the council was expected to conduct interviews of interim city administrator candidates. According to the agenda, councilors were also expected to deliberate on those candidate interviews and potentially take action including the possible appointment and/or approval of an interim administrator contract.
Councilors also planned that night, according to the agenda posted on the city website, to discuss additional issues and potential direction or action related to succession planning, the search/hire of a new city administrator, workload transitions and other staffing-related needs.
Eckerly came to Maple Lake after 13 years with the City of Paynesville as city administrator. She did not state a reason or share future plans when she resigned Tuesday.
After accepting Eckerly’s resignation, Tuesday, Maple Lake Mayor Lynn Kissock expressed her appreciation for the work Eckerly has done for the city over the last few years.
Above, Renee Eckerly poses by the city’s welcome sign when she was hired as city administrator back in 2021. Eckerly will be moving on to new things as of Friday, Feb. 16.