What is the council’s vision for the future of Monticello?

To the Editor,

     The need for an (city) administrator has been well established when you have mostly a voluntary mayor and city council. The bureaucracy of the federal and state governments requires a lot of paperwork of local government, and then there’s growth.

     What kind of administrator should the city have? New or old? Experienced or green? Aggressive or friendly?

     To figure out the needs of the city, the mayor and city council should assess their vision of what the community’s growth is. In the past, the city’s population has grown rather modestly. Past policies have discouraged growth by not subsidizing street, water, sewer, as some cities do, to encourage residential development. That is a council decision and reflects their vision of growth.

     Dyersville has a city manager that’s paid top of the scale. His leadership has them invested in commercial property lots for business and industry and industry – with a heavy debt load that follows that vision. It is growing rapidly. They more growth, the more issues and the more debt.

     The City of Hopkinton has a part-time administrator and doesn’t want to expand the city, just maintain it. Cascade, I assume, is somewhat in between. It accepts growth, seeks it somewhat, but generally is not that aggressive. It mostly maintains what it had but it too is growing.

     So… What’s Monticello’s vision for growth? You don’t need a whiz bang fireball administrator, with salary accordingly, if the city’s attitude is just to maintain what we have and/or improve it gradually as opportunity appears.

     A college graduate or graduate with two or three years of experience will do the job at $60,000 a year instead of $150,000 a year or more like we currently have (had).

     So again, what is the city council’s vision of Monticello’s growth for the next 10 years? Decide that and choosing the next administrator will be less difficult. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the highest growth, where would you place Monticello for growth in the next 10 years?

With regard,

Stephen J. Intlekofer

Monticello, Iowa