Palmer hires city manager

PALMER — The city of Palmer has found its manager.

Joseph Hannan is a resident of Washington state and has experience running a city as a manager. He is expected to start in Palmer on May 14.

City councilman Richard Best said that the decision was a tough one for the council.

“They were all qualified candidates, I think. The candidate that we did settle on has a background of development within a community and is very community minded,” Best said, also noting Hannan has a military background.

“He was actually over in some of the war-torn countries helping set up almost entire countries,” Best said, before joking that, “it will be just like Palmer.”

Palmer, of course, isn’t a war zone. On the home front, war is waged with words.

“We do have differing opinions sometimes, and I think that his background will really help,” Best said.

Hannan will fly up before his start date to make the rounds. He’ll be in town for a chamber of commerce meeting and for Palmer’s big annual Capital Projects Fair on April 24.

Best said that Hannan’s contract is for two years, with an option to renew for a third. He will replace Doug Griffin, who is leaving in May for personal reasons. Griffin said he’d like to move on to something like retirement and spend less time shuttling back and forth between Palmer and his Anchorage family.

In searching for Griffin’s replacement, the city chose to seek candidates on its own rather than hire a headhunting firm. A list of 32 applicants was whittled down to five names: Hannan; Kenai city manager Rick Koch — who declined the job after Palmer offered it to him; Scott Hahn — who wound up taking a job in Skagway while the city was trying to hire Koch; Homer public works director Carey Meyer; and Palmer’s own director of public safety, Jon Owen.

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