LEBANON — The departing city manager did not say “goodbye” to his 200 employees Friday, but rather “good work.”

        “Each person here has made a contribution,” James Patrick said at a citywide staff meeting in the chambers where City Council accepted his resignation late Thursday. “Look to the future, and don't get bogged down in the past.”

Patrick

        Mr. Patrick, wearing business-casual khakis and a chambray shirt, named service employee Kay Testerman “employee of the year” and the streets department the “department of the year.”

        The meeting had been previously scheduled, and there was little indication of the turmoil that led to Friday being Mr. Patrick's last day of work.

        In agreements hammered out in a four-hour special meeting Thursday night, Mr. Patrick and City Auditor Greg Dixon resigned in exchange for about $200,000 in pay and benefits. Their supporters on council engineered the moves to avoid their firings when a new council is seated Monday.

        Several employees said afterward that they're sorry to see Mr. Patrick go.

        Police Chief Ken Burns lauded the city manager's people skills: “He's done a lot to bring staff and employees together.”

        Service Director Pat Clements, who has been on the job just six months, is expected to take over Monday as interim city manager.

        “Pat has done a very good job behind the scenes of letting us know it will be business as usual,” Telecommunications Director Jim Baldwin said Friday afternoon. “... I don't know of anyone in the city who doesn't have respect for Pat.”

        Still, Mr. Baldwin said, Mr. Patrick's departure — expected since three of his council supporters lost re-election Nov. 6 — isn't the last distraction city employees will have to deal with.

        “I think that no matter what we all think, this won't be the end of it,” he said.

        Retired City Attorney Bill Duning, accused of improperly taking an early-retirement buyout from the city almost two years ago, goes on trial in less than two weeks on felony charges of theft in office and unlawful interest in a public contract.

        Former City Auditor Debbie Biggs will be tried on the same charges in late January — at the same time Mr. Patrick and retired Electric Department Director Bob Newton are tried on charges of aiding and abetting Mr. Duning and Mrs. Biggs.

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