Milton Finds New Interim City Manager

by Jason Wright / Appen Newspapers

October 16, 2008 MILTON -

According to city's communication's department, Milton City Council will vote Oct. 20 on making 31-year government veteran Mortimer Smedley its interim City Manager.Due to publishing deadlines, the outcome of that vote is not known. Please visit www.northfulton.com for a full run down of the meeting's events.Smedley spent 18 years as municipal manager of the borough of Lehighton, Penn., then nine as County Administrator for Carbon County, which is also in Pennsylvania. He finished his career with a two-year stint in Maryland as County Administrator for St. Mary's County, where he oversaw a more than $100 million budget and oversaw more than 600 employees.He spent three years in the Navy and more than 30 in the Army Reserves.Interestingly, the semi-retired Smedley most recently spent the last eight years at the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution in Ft. Pierce Fla.

There he worked with research scientists as 2nd mate on the Seward Johnson II throughout the Atlantic Ocean, Adriatic Sea, Gulf of Mexico and Carribean.Smedley will likely replace acting City Manager Chris Lagerbloom, who is the city's director of Public Safety. Lagerbloom stepped in for the second time after former City manager Billy Beckett, a 30-year government veteran, tendered his resignation in late August, citing tensions with a minority of council members.

Beckett joined Milton in late April, ending Lagerbloom's first fill in period. The director previously served as city manager for eight months starting in August 2007 after Milton's first captain, Aaron Bovos, resigned following the city's failure to apply for an insurance premium tax kickback. He now works as deputy city administrator in Roswell.