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Out with the Old In with the New By Councilman Kingery City Administrator, Steve Henning, left to go back to Texas on August 24th after being the City Administrator for just a little under two years. Tony Tolstedt started as our new City Administrator on August 29th and was sworn in early that morning. Steve came out of retirement to serve us and he, with the help of a great city staff, accomplished a great deal of projects and improvements. The list of accomplishments is long and if you stop by the City Hall you can pick up a copy if you would like. Steve came to us with many years of experience as a City Administrator, County Commissioner and other public service positions. He had worked in large cities and small towns and he was able to fit that experience to the city Douglas. His wealth of knowledge was always obvious and Steve had a knack for looking at the “big mess” of a problem and zeroing right in to the center of the issue. We made great progress in the short time he was here and I am grateful for the opportunity to work with him while on the City Council. Our city is better off today because of Steve’s service to us. He leaves “big shoes” to fill! Tony comes to us after serving as the City Administrator for the town of Broken Bow, Nebraska, a town of about 2,200 residents. Tony doesn’t have as much experience, but what he lacks in experience is made up by enthusiasm. He was born in Wyoming and has lived in small communities nearer the size of Douglas. Even without a great deal of experience, Tony stood out to us in our process of selecting a new City Administrator. The more we learned the more impressed we were. Tony and his wife (also born in Wyoming) have two small children and the family has wanted to get re-located back to Wyoming for quite some time. Tony’s background check revealed a history of being very good at doing his job. Every council person and the mayor of Broken Bow were more than enthused about Tony and his ability to be a great City Administrator for Douglas. Tony already has “big shoes” and we are expecting great things from him. I stopped by the office on Friday afternoon and Tony had removed his tie and was in the middle of getting to know staff, solving problems and making improvements. Douglas has no shortage of problems and projects to challenge our new administrator and we are all looking forward to moving forward under Tony Tolstedt’s tutelage! The Tolstedt’s home will be ready for them to move in September 8th and they are looking forward to being a part of this community.