‘Good staff’ aids Palmer manager’s transition

PALMER — The city’s new manager said the job he started last week is a far cry from the one he recently left.

Doug Griffin had spent a year managing the village of St. Mary. He came in as an interim manager on a contract that was only supposed to last a year. The village, he said, was a neat place and relatively sophisticated. But it was eye-opening, he said, to see how Alaska’s smallest governing bodies run.

“It’s sort of night and day,” Griffin said, describing how larger Alaskan communities like Palmer compare to a village government. “Out there you were pretty much on your own with inexperienced staff; what staff you do have.”

He said he might have stayed on longer. People in the village asked him if he would.

“They were certainly interested in hiring me full time, but I couldn’t get my wife to move out,” Griffin said.

Luckily, the Palmer job came open. It will actually be his third stint as a municipal manager. He was city manager of Valdez from 1987 to 1995, which means he was in charge of that city during the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound.

After Valdez, Griffin headed up the state’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Board from 1996 to 2008, when he retired. The ABC board oversees and enforces liquor licenses in the state.

He came to the St. Mary job through a directory the Alaska Municipal League keeps of people qualified to head up a municipal government. He was fortunate that he got the position when he did. It would have been tough to apply for the Palmer post 14 years after his last manager job ended.

“It probably kind of put me back in the game and probably helped me a lot in getting full consideration from the Palmer City Council and actually having a shot at this job,” Griffin said.

He said he’s ready to get down to work and thinks it’s good that both he and the city’s new mayor, DeLena Johnson, are starting out with a fresh slate. And he thinks he’ll have lots of help getting started in the job.

“Bill Allen has put together a really good staff and good systems and ways of doing things that will make the transition a lot easier,” Griffin said.

As far as priorities in the immediate future, Griffin said that he kind of showed up to a full slate of tasks to accomplish.

“My second day on the job I got delivered a budget,” he said.

In a matter of months the state Legislature will be back in session. Griffin said he also needs to get together the city’s list of priorities to send to Juneau for consideration. He also needs to start working to sell $3 million in bonds voters narrowly approved to buy the old Matanuska Maid property.

“We’re still finishing the upgrade of the arena for the Alaska Avalanche hockey team,” Griffin said. “We’re still working on some issues with the airport that will take some planning.”

In short, he’s got a full list. And amid it all he and his wife will be moving to Palmer from Anchorage. Things were kind of rushed during the selection process; he only had a few days between hearing he got the job and starting work.

In a way, that was purposeful. For one thing, he wanted to get a jump on the budget. But he also felt it best both symbolically and logistically to start work before the newly elected mayor and council members were seated.

“I kind of volunteered to start sooner rather than later,” Griffin said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.