The following editorial is from the March 2025 edition of the Lenawee Voice.
With every change comes opportunity, and the city of Adrian’s search for the next city administrator is no different.
It’s an important decision, and one that deserves to be approached with thoughtful deliberation, as well as reflection on what the ideal candidate will bring to the table.
It was encouraging to hear city commissioner Bob Behnke talk at the Feb. 17 commission meeting about holding meetings to gather residents’ thoughts about what characteristics they would like to see in the city’s top employee. When hiring for high-level positions, it’s not unusual to end up with several finalists who could all do the mechanics of the job perfectly well— but who have different interests, different focuses, and different sets of professional and life experiences.
Even with the city commission setting the overall direction, the administrator plays a huge role in steering the ship, and due to their own individual interests and experiences, every candidate would approach the job in their own way.
We have one suggestion for a trait that would be good to look for. It’s not unusual to hear residents say that it’s difficult to navigate city government. This is not necessarily anyone’s fault — a city is a complex operation, and when you want to set up laws and procedures to anticipate every scenario, those can end up being complex as well. An emphasis from the top on setting up user-friendly procedures could go a long way.
So why not look for a city administrator who has a strong interest in customer service? In translating the often clunky language of city government into plain English, and in making sure no resident who’s acting in good faith goes away discouraged, but instead is able to easily find whatever answers they need?
It might not be the first thing you think of when describing a city administrator’s job. But a strong emphasis on making the complexity of city government as user-friendly as possible might make a big difference for Adrian.
