Gone after all for BP administrator

No more negotiating: Melanie Aeschliman made her decision.

The Blooming Prairie city administrator has accepted the position of Freeborn County administrator.

That board of commissioners accepted her contract on Feb. 18; her last day in Blooming Prairie City Hall is March 20.

According to the Albert Lea Tribune, Aeschliman will receive a starting salary of about $162,500 plus benefits annually, with an initial performance review after six months.

She was offered the role after besting three other candidates for the position. When members of the Blooming Prairie City Council learned that they held an emergency meeting to approve a “merit retention offer,” moving her pay from about $116,000 to $150,000.

But there appeared to be some confusion about the initial offer from Freeborn County, and Aeschliman declined it on Feb. 3.

According to the Tribune, the interim county administrator was directed to reach back out to Aeschliman “to see if she would be willing to reconsider the opportunity (in Freeborn County) if a counteroffer were presented.”

It was, and she did.

“I just really felt like I had to explore this opportunity,” Aeschliman said last week. “This is what I’ve worked so hard for, and to not take the opportunity would be irresponsible of me.”

She is pursuing her doctorate degree in public administration.

“The city itself has very great staff and very knowledgeable staff,” she said, “so I know that I’m not leaving the city in bad hands. Both bills are now done and at the Capitol, so we’ve done a lot of work there.”

Aeschliman is referring to legislation she wrote seeking state money to help the city pay for expenses to remediate contamination of the groundwater and soil along the U.S. Highway 218 corridor through town.

The most recent estimate for the clean-up is $4 million – billed to the city of Blooming Prairie.

That potential expense made the Council’s approval of a pay hike offer all the more stunning.

“For the city of Blooming Prairie to offer the $150,000 – I was shocked,” Aeschliman said. There are other costly projects on the horizon, “so I have to commend the council for seeing and knowing the impact and still putting it out there.

“I also felt that was a lot for them to have to justify and explain,” she said. “It would put the council in a precarious situation, and I had to weigh that out.”

Still, she said, “I told Mayor Ressler and the staff here, I’m just a phone call away. I’ll be able to support them.”

In the meantime, Aeschliman is “putting folders together, defining each of the projects and where we are in the process … just getting everything kind of wrapped up, so whoever comes in is not left wondering what is going on.”

Though she’ll be gone in three weeks, city leaders don’t expect to even post the position until after Aeschliman leaves.

A preliminary timeline indicates that after finalizing job expectations and multiple interviews, a new city administrator will be in place in late July.

The same firm that found Aeschliman, Local Government Solutions out of North Mankato, will once again lead the search.

“I think they’ll be able to find a qualified applicant,” she said.