Palmer interviewing two candidates for city manager position

Palmer’s city council is interviewing two city manager candidates to take John Moosey’s place when Moosey retires June 17.

“We’re still in negotiations,” Palmer Mayor Steve Carrington said.

There’s no set deadline for a decision.

“We’d like to get it done as soon as possible," the mayor said.

Moosey has been Palmer’s manager since 2020. Before that he was manager of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough for nine years, beginning in 2011.

The two candidates being interviewed both appear highly qualified but have different backgrounds.

One is Kolby Hickel, currently Anchorage’s deputy municipal manager. The second is Kim Zimmerman, now borough manager in Lewistown, Pennsylvania.

Zimmerman is a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel and a former Alaska resident who managed private housing at Elmendorf Air Force base for several years.

In Anchorage, Hickel’s responsibilities include managing city utilities, the Port of Alaska, public transit and Merrill Field, the city-owned airport. She was heavily involved in the effort to secure federal and state funding for reconstruction of Anchorage’s port, a major project that is now underway.

She has undergraduate and graduate business management degrees from the University of Alaska Anchorage. Prior to joining the municipality she was director of sales at the Hotel Captain Cook in Anchorage.

Zimmerman now manages a municipal government in Pennsylvania with a population of about 8,500. He has an undergraduate degree in biology from Clarion University in Pennsylvania and a graduate degree in geography and regional planning from California University of Pennsylvania.

Interestingly, Zimmerman also holds an associates’ degree in gunsmithing from Trinidad State Junior College in Pennsylvania where he focused on gunmaking and restoration. He served in the U.S. Army from 1989 to 2020 mostly in logistics. His service included time in combat zones, in Iraq.

Hickel, in describing her qualifications, said: “For the past three years, I’ve overseen operational requirements for Alaska’s largest city and managed a multi-billion-dollar port modernization project. In my current position as Deputy Municipal Manager for Anchorage I am acutely aware of how important transparency, cooperation, and integrity are to keep a city functioning in a healthy and productive direction.”

“Growing up immersed in Alaska politics, I learned the responsibility of civic leaders is to the citizens. Government’s role is to represent and serve the best interests of the community.Policy, changes to code, social issues are negotiated between the Mayor, the City Council, and public testimony; the City Manager is responsible for the day-to-day functions of municipal governance,” she said.

Zimmerman, in his application, said: "My management and leadership skills have been continually developed and honed for the past three-plus decades as an active-duty logistics officer in the U.S. Army, in the private sector as the City Manager of Ridgway, Pennsylvania, the Operations Director position for a privatized housing firm at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska and most recently as the City Manager for the Borough of Lewistown in Pennsylvania.”

“Countless times I have been involved in the leadership, management, stewardship, fiscal supervision, and planning of real property accountability, construction, maintenance, zoning and its use around the world and in local communities,” he said.