Dear Editor,

Our city manager, Nancy Freenock, will be leaving Warren in August. She has served the city of Warren for 10 years. Thank you for your service and all the best in your future endeavors.

I believe Warren was lucky to have a city manager for 10 years, but I am not confident such a person and long tenure can be found again outside of Warren.

Recent experience with the planning and code department is a good example. The employee before Randy Rossey was in and out faster than a revolving door, and he certainly thought he was better than our town. I saw him being here only until a city as big as his ego had an opening.

Conversely, Rossey lives in Warren and having served on committees and boards has proven his love and devotion to the city and residents. Those qualities far outweigh any lack of experience, and I know, given time, Rossey will be up to speed and fulfill his duties and responsibilities competently.

When Chief Raymond Zydonic retired there was a lot of talk about how a search for his replacement would be conducted. I said, nonsense! You can’t tell me there isn’t someone within the department qualified and deserving of the opportunity. Bingo! Chief Brandon Deppen. When he moved onto greener pastures (his new office is literally beside a green pasture), Bingo again, Chief Joseph Sproveri. All three of these chiefs served or serve with honor and distinction.

I’d prefer and recommend our next city manager be part of our community. There might be other community members interested in the position, but I highly recommend council consider and interview Kenneth Hinton.

He was a police officer for many years, and I had the opportunity to interact with him on a several occasions. While I respect every officer who serves our city, there was something about him I saw to be a role model for policing.

Ken retired from the department and moved into code enforcement. I had a number of interactions with Hinton in his new position and I was impressed by the level of competency he achieved in short time. Here again, I was impressed by the way he performed his duties.

I have had many conversations with Hinton wherein he has demonstrated interests in our city well beyond policing and codes. In other words, Ken has a vision of greater things, and like Randy Rossey has proven his love and devotion to Warren.

He deserves the opportunity to be interviewed and given serious consideration for the position of city manager.

Dan Ristau,

Warren