EDITORIAL: Nan Crary’s dismissal

McLeod County commissioners’ firing of Administrator Nan Crary caught us by surprise last week. It caught many people by surprise.

But firings often surprise people, especially the employee’s family members and co-workers. We don’t know how Ms. Crary’s co-workers reacted to the news. Most of them weren’t willing to talk with the Leader’s reporter last week. One who did talk, Bonnie Richter, Ms. Crary’s assistant, didn’t see it coming.
Obviously, the sudden end of a county’s administrator’s 12-year tenure raises many questions. Why did it happen? Was it handled the best way possible? Where does the county go from here?

An unexpected event
The public had few, if any clues, that three of the five members on the McLeod County Board — all representing the Hutchinson area — were dissatisfied with Ms. Crary’s performance. The resolution approved by the board last Tuesday said “McLeod County needs a county administrator that does not get involved in policy issues.”

We know nothing about Ms. Crary’s policy issue involvement that would have caused her dismissal. We do know, from experience, that many public administrators — whether they are leading a county, city, school district or hospital — often lead the charge to develop a policy that is eventually adopted by a board. And once a policy is adopted — regardless of whether the administrator agrees with it — the administrator’s job is to carry it out.

We know that Ms. Crary was a champion of a proposed $23 million county jail, though the County Board eventually unanimously voted it down. We know that she didn’t support a proposal to develop a countywide economic authority when we first mentioned the idea to her a year or two ago. Countywide momentum for the authority is growing stronger every day.