By Brenda Erdahl
The Maple Lake City Council is prepared to make an offer for an interim Maple Lake city administrator position after interviewing four candidates.
At its Tuesday, Feb. 6 regular meeting, councilors approved a motion to allow Mayor Lynn Kissock to enter into conversation and negotiate a contract with Shirley Slater-Schulte.
The interim city administrator would fill in for Renee Eckerly who resigned from the position last month. Her last day is Friday, Feb. 16.
Slater-Schulte has 50 years of experience working with city governments. She started her career with the City of Dayton where she worked as city clerk/treasurer, in finance and then city administration for 29 ½ years. She then worked for the City of Albert Lea for 11 years after which she retired. Two years later she registered with the League of Minnesota Cities and has been busy filling interim positions across the state ever since. She has held interim positions in 11 or 12 cities, she said including Kimball and Richmond. She is currently Interim City Administrator at Oronoco.
Maple Lake Councilors agreed at a special Jan. 24th meeting to hire the experience and expertise of David Drown and Associates Company to search and find a fulltime city administrator that would be a good match for Maple Lake. In the meantime, councilors agreed at that same meeting to hire an interim administrator to help ease the transition. On Wednesday, Jan. 31, the council interviewed three candidates for the interim position. They interviewed their final candidate, Slater-Schulte at their regular meeting, Tuesday, Feb. 6.
According to Mayor Kissock, all four candidates had the experience and know-how to mentor staff and assist the city through this transition, but Slater-Schulte stood out in part because of her team spirit.
“She said she is a team player, and her first goal is to support the employees and that really is exactly what our staff needs right now,” Kissock said.
Councilors were also impressed by her experience working with auditors and they have hopes she will help them get the city’s audit done in a timelier manner.
“She has the energy, enthusiasm, what it takes to support our staff and the experience to turn things around,” Kissock said.