SPICER -- After nearly 12 years of service in Spicer, Kimberly Wothe will walk away from Spicer City Hall today for the last time as city administrator.
"Yes, it's hitting me and it's an emotional time," Wothe said Thursday. "I'm going to miss a lot of the people I work with ... and it is a big change in my life."
Wothe will move on, after 16 years of city government work, to the Let's Go Fishing with Seniors org-anization as its director of administration and finance.
Her colleagues at City Hall say she couldn't be missed more when she leaves.
"She will be ... extremely missed by the people, the town and her co-workers," said Spicer Public Works Director Dan Haats, who has worked 11 years with Wothe. "She has been, honest to God, one of the funnest people to work with and one of the best bosses you could ever ask to work for."
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Earlier this month, Wothe took the job with Let's Go Fishing with Seniors and submitted her resignation during Spicer's Feb. 13 council meeting. Wothe started with the city in 1996 after serving as Atwater's city clerk for four years.
Wothe said she took the city administrator job because she thought Spicer was "always an exciting town" when she was growing up in Atwater.
During her employment, Wothe said she's seen the small Green Lake town with an old city hall crawling with mice transform into a town with businesses expanding in its city limits.
Part of that transformation, Haats said, was from Wothe's energy and how "it just shined on the community." Haats said her energy could be seen through all the town's accomplishments in the last decade.
Some of the city's accomplishments most noted under Wothe's tenure include the expansion of state Highway 23 in Spicer, the construction and additions of Erickson Memorial Library, the new city hall and fire station, and construction of the town's new playground among others.
Longtime Spicer Councilman Terry Holmquist said Wothe's organization and her "off the top of her head" knowledge of Minnesota law were just some of the qualities that made her the ideal city administrator.
"She was honest, hardworking, dedicated; just about everything you could ask for," said Holmquist, who has been a councilman during Wothe's entire tenure. "Basically she saw to it that all of the functions of the city were running the way they were supposed to. To me, that's pretty key."
City Clerk LaNae Osmond agreed with Holmquist's assessment, saying many of Wothe's qualities helped create the strong working relationship they had.
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"(Wothe) is very organized and she has a good memory about what has happened and the details of how things were arrived at," Osmond said.
"I'm gonna miss that. And she and I have worked well together."
Holmquist, a member of the city's personnel committee, said the city started the preliminary searching for Wothe's successor earlier this month.
Wothe said whoever steps into her position should remember just one bit of advice.
"There are some people out there that want to do some good projects in Spicer," Wothe said. "(The next administrator) should help them realize those ambitions and dreams."
