City council to discuss naming interim city manager Thursday

Poplar Bluff City Manager Mark Massingham has announced his decision to retire effective July 10.

The matter was accepted by council members during a closed session vote Monday evening, Massingham said Tuesday morning.

The council will hold a special meeting at 1 p.m. Thursday at the city council chambers to discuss personnel issues, he said. The council is expected to select an interim city manager and discuss the hiring process for the next city manager. A portion of the meeting is expected to occur in closed session for those limited items exempted under Missouri’s open meetings law.

Massingham said he may continue to work for the city on a part-time basis for a few months to assist with the transition process.

“Late last winter, I had really thought about retiring,” said Massingham, 61, who started conversations with the council then and began to look at a May 2020 retirement date, but the worldwide pandemic changed those plans. “I just felt like I can’t abandon ship right now with all this going on.”

“I’ve been thinking about this for a long time,” Massingham explained, “and with our first granddaughter coming shortly, I felt like this was the best time to retire.”

Massingham’s son Garrett and wife Stephanie are expecting their first child July 4. Massingham and wife Paula also have a son, Landon, and daughter, Lyndsey.

Massingham said the decision has nothing to do with the recent election, in which the city lost a vote for a use tax that would have provided a badly needed revenue injection.

It has been difficult to determine the best time to retire, according to Massingham, because the city faces so many important issues. Efforts have started to construct a new police department and city hall, to extend the four laning of Highway 67 south to the Arkansas border, and to bring city spending into the black after several years of dipping into cash reserves.

But the city has faced many difficult issues in the tumultuous six years since Massingham was first named interim city manager to replace fired city manager Doug Bagby in 2014, and then as the replacement approximately nine months later for fired city manager Heath Kaplan in 2015.

Massingham says he has always been eager to be part of making Poplar Bluff better, despite the many controversial issues city officials have faced.

“I was eager to step back in and see what I could do to help,” said Massingham, of accepting the position in 2015.

Massingham started with the city in December 1990 as the finance and personnel director. He held that position for the next 25 years, before transitioning to interim city manager, then assistant city manager and finally city manager.

He came to city government from a job at Snider’s grocery store, running the one hour photo lab and assisting with bookkeeping.

Massingham served as a Ward 4 city council representative and mayor prior to becoming a city employee.