FAIRMONT– The Fairmont City Council interviewed two city administrator candidates on Tuesday. While in Fairmont the candidates also met with department heads and were given a tour of the city.

The city has been without a full-time city administrator since May 2023. Since September 2023 it has been led by interim city administrator Jeff O’Neill. To aid in its search, the city has been working with GovHR USA, a recruitment and management consulting firm.

The two candidates the council interviewed Tuesday were Matt Skaret and Nathan Unsworth.

Skaret most recently served as city administrator for Jackson, Minn. and has also been city administrator for Springfield, Minn., Milford Iowa and Madison, Minn. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science and a master’s degree in public administration from the University of South Dakota.

Unsworth is the Deputy Director for Scott County, Iowa’s Conservation District. Prior to that he served as the Executive Director for Lee County Conservation in Iowa and also the Administrative Superintendent for the city of Newtown, Iowa. He has a Bachelor of Science degree from Iowa State University and a master’s in public affairs degree from the University of Missouri.

First, the council spent an hour with Skaret and took turns asking him questions about his experience, strengths and philosophies.

To start off, Skaret shared that he has 17 years of city management experience in four distinctly different cities in the region. He said most have been full-service cities and in addition to managing departments within the cities, he’s also been a part of some large projects.

“My experience has really prepared me to take the next step in my career to a little larger community. Going from Jackson to Fairmont would be a nice step for me career-wise and it also allows me to stay in the area, which is an area I really love,” Skaret said.

He spoke highly of some infrastructure and amenities that Fairmont has in place, such as its lakes and trail system.

Skaret was asked what his priorities would be in the first first year. Along with learning and gaining the trust of the community and staff, Skaret said he wanted to work on the performance evaluation system, which the council just approved this week.

“I think that is key. I work with performance evaluations, they’re nothing new to me. We do them in Jackson every year,” Skaret said.

He also said he would like to create a culture of public service and good customer service.

When asked what he has done to improve community engagement to help tell the city’s story to the public, Skaret said he has been active with the city’s Facebook page which has gotten a lot of engagement and attraction.

Another question asked was how Skaret would deal with a vocal community group or citizen who is opposed to a project.

“Fortunately I have not had to deal with some of the folks that you have, as far as organized groups, but I have dealt with individuals and smaller groups of people

opposed to projects,” Skaret said. “I think the easiest way to deal with it is just put the truth and the facts out there and explain the financial impact or potential financial impact.”

Skaret was also asked how he would deal with a divided council that doesn’t agree with each and said that an approach he has taken is to get people to work together on what they do agree upon.

When asked about his management style, Skaret said he focuses on communication, collaboration and innovation.

In his time with the council Skaret also spoke about some success he has had in securing grants and other funding for projects. He also touched on economic development and what he believes could be focused on locally, such as housing.

“I think there’s a lot of opportunity here. You have a good foundation to expand upon and improve like the lakes, water quality, tourism… There’s a lot of exciting things professionally that I look forward to,” Skaret said.

Following questions from the council, Skaret had an opportunity to asks some of his own. He asked the council why he would want to be city administrator of Fairmont.

Council Member Randy Lubenow said, “I think we have a lot of un-tapped potential… we’re getting to a point where a lot of stuff is turning over…”

Next, the council spent an hour gathering information from Unsworth. He began by describing his current role and career thus far.

“I went from a small community up to the fourth largest county in Iowa working for Scott County Conservation where I’m the Deputy Director. It’s a great organization but… I’m looking for a change and want to be a city administrator… it’s been a long-term goal and I started exploring opportunities in the last year,” Unsworth said.

He said he is looking forward to living in a smaller town and getting involved with the community.

Unsworth was also asked what his first priories in Fairmont would be. He said he would get to know the staff and gather an understanding of where current projects are at.

“I think doing some goal setting would be a good opportunity to hear what you want to do and start working together on implementing some goals,” Unsworth said.

He was asked how he would prefer to communicate with the council.

“I’m an open book and will try to answer questions as well as I can. I’m transparent, which I think is important to form a relationship and build trust,” Unsworth said.

Management of the city’s budget was also discussed. Unsworth admitted that while he has set a budget for his current department, he has never set one of an entire city. He said he would depend on city staff to help him and take what he could gather from a goal setting session in order to successfully set the budget.

Speaking of economic development, Unsworth said he would also focus on housing and building up businesses but mostly work on retaining what Fairmont already has.

“I think we need to do what we can to keep the companies here happy and keeping the workforce in place is half the challenge. I think being a positive voice for the community in general goes a lot further than people realize,” Unsworth said.

He went on to say that it takes a whole community to promote what it offers.

“What I can tell you from moving around is that the communities that had success were the positive communities that did what they could to promote a positive vision,” Unsworth said.

When asked what projects in Fairmont he was excited about, Unsworth mentioned an interest in the community center as he said it’s a recreational amenity he felt like a city the size of Fairmont should have.

“I think the sky’s the limit for Fairmont. You have a nice community and there’s a lot of communities that wish they have what Fairmont has,” Unsworth said.

Following the interviews, the council discussed the candidates and came up with its preferred selection.