Mitzi Stefka Retires After 30 Years at City Hall
By Greg Ritchie
Messenger Reporter
CROCKETT — When visitors walk into Crockett City Hall, they see portraits of the people who have served as the city’s mayors.
What they may not see are the people who keep the city’s daily operations connected — preparing agendas, posting legal notices, maintaining public records, overseeing elections, managing finances and helping residents find answers.
For nearly 30 years, one of those people has been Mitzi Stefka.
Stefka, Crockett’s city secretary and longtime finance officer, will officially retire Aug. 31. She plans to continue working intermittently through September to help train the person who will succeed her.
A quotation from political scientist William Bennett Munro is attached to Stefka’s emails and offers a fitting description of the work she has done for the city:
“No other office in municipal service has so many contacts. It serves the mayor, the city council, the city manager and all administrative departments without exception. All of them call upon it, almost daily, for some service or information. Its work is not spectacular, but it demands versatility, alertness, accuracy and no end of patience. The public does not realize how many loose ends of city administration this office pulls together.”
Stefka began her career in finance. She was working in Livingston and commuting for four years when she began looking for a job closer to home.
She applied for Crockett’s finance position in August 1996 and was hired.
About four years later, the city secretary retired. Stefka applied for that position and was asked whether she could handle both responsibilities.
“He said, ‘Well, why don’t you do both? You think you can?’ And I said, ‘Yes,’” Stefka recalled.
She has continued working in both roles ever since. By 2002, she was serving as the city’s finance officer and city secretary.
The job has also included periods of additional responsibility. After City Administrator Ron Duncan left, Stefka served as interim city administrator for a couple of years, giving her three jobs at the same time.
“That was difficult, but I made it through,” she said.
As city secretary, Stefka has been responsible for far more than the meetings and agendas most residents may associate with the position.
“I’m responsible for the financial part,” she said. “A city secretary is responsible for the transparency of government records, the public records, elections. I mean, there’s so much.”
Her duties have included preparing agendas, organizing meetings, posting notices, handling legal advertisements and overseeing election work.
The election process was one of the most difficult parts of the job to learn, she said, because election laws change and every election brings different challenges. Before the county took over election responsibilities, the city had to find approximately 18 people to work on Election Day.
“The first year that I started, I had a mayor’s election and then a runoff election,” Stefka said. “That was the hardest thing I think I ever did. But I got through it and didn’t have any issues, and for the most part, I haven’t had issues.”
Over the decades, Crockett has changed, with new growth, grants and projects reshaping the city. Stefka said some aspects of city government have changed with it, while others have remained familiar.
The city has upgraded its software and moved away from the large volume of paper records that once characterized the office.
“We were a lot of paper, and now we’re not,” she said. “We have a lot of ‘cloud.’”
The personalities of the city councils have also changed over the years.
“Councils come and go,” Stefka said. “It’s their personalities that make up what we do back here.”
Still, she said she believes the city is moving in a positive direction.
“I really think the city’s growing, and I don’t think it’s going to stop,” she said. “I see Crockett really growing. I see the businesses coming in that are saying they’re coming in.”
Stefka began thinking about retirement several years ago. The more she considered it, the more certain she became that the time was right.
“I wanted to spend more time with my family, my grandkids,” she said. “There’s some projects I want to do at home.”
Those projects include painting around her home. She also wants to travel.
Her first trip will be with her daughter. They plan to fly to Edinburgh before making their way to Paris for approximately 12 days.
“We’re flying to Edinburgh first, and then we’re going to make our way back to Paris,” Stefka said.
Although she is ready for the change, Stefka said leaving City Hall will not be easy.
“There’s a lot of employees that I’m going to miss,” she said. “I’m going to miss the planning. You know, the communications I have with the employees. I have a really good group here.”
She also mentioned City Administrator John Angerstein and the residents she has worked with over the years.
“Working with residents, the citizens, trying to help them with problems, it’s always been fulfilling for me,” she said.
Stefka said she will also miss the city’s annual employee banquets, which she looked forward to each year.
As for the impact she has had on Crockett, Stefka is reluctant to describe it herself.
“I don’t know. I really don’t,” she said when asked how she would like to be remembered.
Then she offered a simple answer.
“That I was the one that helped them.”
Stefka said several city employees have already told her they will miss her.
“That means a lot to me,” she said.
The portraits on the walls of City Hall may represent the most visible history of Crockett’s government. Stefka’s work has been quieter — carried out through documents, deadlines, elections, meetings, records, phone calls and the daily needs of the people who depend on City Hall.
After 30 years, she believes it is time to begin a different kind of work.
“I think it’s time in my heart,” Stefka said. “I think it’s time.”
Greg Ritchie can be reached at [email protected]
