Chariton official to lead FM city staff

FORT MADISON – A Chariton woman has accepted the position of Fort Madison City Manager after a resolution accepting the candidate was accepted by the Fort Madison City Council Tuesday night.
Laura Liegois, the City Administrator in Chariton, accepted the position last week after an offer sheet was presented to her last week.
Legois (pronounced Lee-jus) has been in her position at Chariton for the past four years after being hired in June of 2019. She’s originally from Muscatine and has her own consulting business called Municipal Connections. Her company did public relations work for Fort Madison when it rolled out the new city trash collection bins.
She was the solid waste manager in Muscatine for 10 years prior to accepting the position with Chariton. Chariton is located on U.S. 34 about 130 miles west of Fort Madison.
According to the resolution approved Tuesday night, Liegois’ starting salary will be $128,000 annually for the first six months and then upon successful review at six months, that rate is scheduled to increase to a maximum of $132,000. The salary package includes 80 hours of vacation immediately and access to the city’s regular health and retirement benefits package.
In her time at Chariton Liegois accomplished many projects including:
• The first housing addition in the City of Chariton community for the past thirty years.
• Upgrades and long-term planning for parks and recreation. This included a $565,000.00 splash pad, themed for the City of Chariton and in partnership with a local youth leadership group for the project. The splash pad received $385,000 in grants.
• Dedication to improving the quality of health with a $3.5 million upgrade to the Chariton Sewer Plant with a UV disinfectant system and other upgrades for long-term use. This project received an Iowa Economic Development Grant of $500,000.
•Improvement of Chariton’s Main Street Community with a $2.6 million downtown square sidewalk project with pedestrian placemaking areas in three alleys.
Liegois is scheduled to start working for the city on Jan. 22, 2024. However, Fort Madison Mayor Matt Mohrfeld said Liegois has offered to have regular calls starting this week to get her up to speed on city business prior to the start date.
Her contract requires her to live within city limits six months after starting the position, but Liegois told the council she was already in talks with a realtor and a bank to start the process of moving her family to town.
“Thank you for the opportunity to come to Fort Madison. We’re excited about everything and we’re starting to make our plans of what we need to do to move to the city,” Liegois said over teleconference.
“I look forward to seeing you all soon.
“It’ll be fast and furious in the next few weeks as I finish up my duties here in Chariton and get ready to head to your community, which will be my new home.”
Mohrfeld said he would do all he could over the next quarter to help Liegois adapt to the community and the city operations.