Kimball City Clerk/Treasurer Annette Brower is now the new City Administrator. She was picked by the city council Tuesday night on a 3-2 vote with Mayor Keith Prunty breaking a 2-2 tie.

Brower was nominated for the post by Prunty last year, but was rejected by the city council because of concerns over the selection process. Kimball has been without an administrator since Dan Dean retired in May 2020.

Some members of the public questioned Brower again being a candidate, suggesting some council members had a conflict of interest, but current Councilor Christy Warner strongly supported Brower.

She said Brower would have been perfectly justified in quitting after what Warner called “the treatment she went through over a year ago (because) there’s no way we pay any of our administrators worth going through that.”

Warner said Brower stayed and “took all the crap from anybody that was willing to give it…because she cares about the community.”

Fellow council member Creg Pike reminded the audience that the consultant who helped the city with the search process was so impressed that she said if Kimball picked someone else, she’d hire Brower herself or help her find another position.

Brower was one of 2 finalists. The other was Patrick Davidson, an attorney who’d been Gillette city administrator for nearly 4 years before the city issued a brief statement in Feb saying he was no longer a city employee without giving an explanation.