Lima Mayor Sharetta Smith announced her first appointment to her administration.
Wednesday, she announced current City Engineer Kirk Niemeyer will become the City of Lima’s Public Works Director. Niemeyer has been with the city for 20 years with responsibilities including direct engineering, construction, personnel, and budgeting. He has worked closely with department heads and the city council on many projects. He says he is ready to step into the position and the mayor says she has all the confidence in him to head the department.
Kirk Niemeyer says, “Everyone starts coming to me and start asking questions versus me asking everyone else. So, I’ve been involved with a lot of different parts and pieces of the city infrastructure and so it does make it, there’s a big hurdle there that I’ve already kind of stepped over and I’ve got other big hurdles ahead of me.”
Lima Mayor Sharetta Smith adds, “Not only is he talented, he’s a consummate professional having being involved here in our city with our public works projects, whether that is going after federal monies to bring in the dollars to complete those projects or actually doing the technical engineering work. I’m confident that Kirk is the person to lead our public works department.”
Retiring Public Works Director Howard Elstro’s last day will be March 31st and Niemeyer will take office April 1st. The city will now start the process of hiring a new engineer which will go through the civil service process.
