The Jefferson city council held a special meeting April 18 to approve hiring Scott Peterson, now city clerk/administrator of Lake View, as Jefferson city administrator. Peterson’s first day on the job will be June 15. City administrator Mike Palmer will retire effective June 30.
Peterson has been in his current position since July 1998. He was clerk/administrator in Glidden and city clerk in Dayton prior to returning to his home town of Lake View.
“I’m really excited about the opportunity,” Peterson said Tuesday. “You obviously have a lot of great things going on. I’m looking forward to these next challenges and a move to a little bigger community and everything that goes along with that. I can’t wait to hit the ground running.”
He holds a bachelor of arts in political science and a masters in public administration from Iowa State University. He grew up in Lake View and graduated from Wall Lake View High School in 1987.
Peterson named recruiting Evapco Inc to Lake View as one of his bigger accomplishments there. Evapco is now the largest employer in Sac County. A downtown revitalization project has also been completed, though he said it’s not on the scale of what has happened in Jefferson.
He said he knows about economic development in Jefferson through Region XII Council of Governments and the Western Iowa Development Association. He said he’s researched how Jefferson has been successful and learned about “the fantastic community organizations and how a lot of it is driven by volunteers. That excites me. I really want to be part of that and be really involved in the community.”
He golfs and bicycles in his leisure time.
Peterson’s wife Nancy is a Methodist minister serving three churches in Sac County. They have three adult children and five grandchildren. They will move to Jefferson when they find a home.
