Greg DuMars retires this month after more than 20 years as Lindsborg City Administrator, and the event leaves a slight feeling of unease and suspension. Something firm and enduring is going away.
Over the years, DuMars has managed the intricate and endless responsibilities of city government with a level head and a steady hand – sharp-eyed, mindful of the present while ever long on vision.
It shows. The energy and appeal of our town, its fixed course of improvement year over year, are marks of DuMars’ skill in seeing that things work in the right way. He has practiced the art of good management with finesse: hire good people and get out of their way. A number of agencies – departments – provide essential services with such efficiency that we are apt to take them for granted: water, electricity, clean streets and sidewalks, police, fire and ambulance, a medical clinic and hospital, the parks and ball fields and golf course, and such recent favors as the hike and bike trail, courts for pickle ball, a park for skaters, and another for dogs.
Progress has not come easily. Bad storms have battered us in every season, among the worst that terrible flood in 2013. Over time, DuMars and staff have navigated the jungle growth of state and federal regulations, the fog-bound landscape of bureaucracies, quicksand in Topeka and Washington and the occasional burst of local suspicion or discontent. Government here has worked because city hall has inspired a fundamental local trust in government. Management, led by DuMars, has returned the favor by guiding a town that is more livable, not just lived-in.
Consider a few results from the DuMars years:
‒ A three-year city-wide sidewalk rehabilitation project, with municipal subsidies for private property improvements (completed 2004).
‒ The $370,000 renovation of East Lincoln Street from Second Street to Harrison-Cole, including the great iron Välkommen archway, with new lighting, signage, 10-feet wide sidewalks and landscaping (completed in 2005);
– Viking Valley, the children’s recreation village in Swensson Park (completed 2005), a community volunteer effort.
‒ The $1.5 million Välkommen Trail, a 2.5-mile concrete and landscaped pedestrian and bicycle route with trail heads and rest stops (opened in 2006); financing included $1.2 million in federal Transportation Enhancement Grants through the state Department of Transportation. A 1.5-mile extension has opened in northeast Lindsborg.
‒ Renovation of the City’s entire power grid, doubling voltage capacity, increasing efficiency and reducing line loss (a 7-year program completed in 2007 at roughly $200,000 per year).
‒ The $400,000 widening and rebuilding of East Swensson, from Bethany campus to Harrison-Cole, including new lighting, signage and landscaping (2011);
‒ The $1.2 million renovation of the Lindsborg Municipal Building and City offices, at Main and Lincoln (completed, 2010);
– In April 2010, voters approved a local half-cent sales tax increase to finance economic development projects; progress cultivates a desire to keep going.
‒ Construction of a $5.8 million water treatment plant (finished, 2011). Of the total cost, $500,000 came from municipal sewer reserve funds. The rest (most) of the project was paid with a $3.4 million federal loan and $1.9 million in two federal grants.
– The J.O. Sundstrom Conference Center, opened in 2013; this merged with creation of the Convention and Visitors Bureau, the municipal agency that promotes the city and puts it on the phone screens and to-do lists of countless businesses, event planners, and tourists.
– In 2017, a far-reaching flood control (stormwater management) project in north and west Lindsborg, financed with a new stormwater utility fee. After the tragic flooding of 2013, the City took action, crafted a plan and a way to pay for it. In four years it happened.
– The City in 2020 created a Rural Housing Incentive District to help finance the infrastructure for a 43-acre, 140-lot development in northeast Lindsborg called Stockholm Estates. This is to meet an accelerating demand for affordable housing in rural Kansas. The first phase, 50 lots, is under construction, one of three tracts approved for housing tax incentives by the Kansas Department of Commerce. Homes are going up on 13 of the 20 lots already sold.
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The list is longer but there’s the idea. Layered into this story are the gifts of many benefactors, people who believed in the community.
Today the downtown is busy with people and music, the neighborhoods are spirited and shipshape, the town dressed with energy. The 2020 census says Lindsborg (pop. 3,800) has grown ten percent in the sweep of western Kansas that has otherwise lost population. DuMars and his corps have been a guiding force. Mayors and city councils and citizens over the years put their trust in DuMars and his aptitude, and it has worked.
