Palmer hires new manager

PALMER — If all goes according to plan, the city won’t have more than a couple of weeks between the departure of its current manager and the arrival of its next one.

City council Monday night authorized the city clerk and city attorney to put together a contract agreement with Doug Griffin.

Griffin is city manager of St. Mary’s and formerly headed up the state’s Alcohol Beverage Control Board, which is the body that oversees, among other things, liquor licenses.

Palmer City Manager Bill Allen said this week will be his last on the job.

The council voted in April not to renew Allen’s contract. His tenure with the city lasted for around two and a half years. Council members at the time his contract was not renewed said Allen was moving too fast and that the city, under his leadership, had a reputation for being hard to work with.

Mayor John Combs said the transition should be swift.

“I think it will be two weeks at the very most,” Combs said of the lag time between Griffin and Allen. “Mr. Allen created a position of deputy city manager and so that’s Sara Jansen, and she can hold the desk down for a couple of weeks. It’ll be just like if Bill went on vacation.”

Griffin was one of three finalists selected for the position. The other two were a city government consultant and former Ketchikan-Gateway Borough Manager Roy Eckert, III, and Stephen Giesbrecht, city manager of Electra, Texas.