Giroux, Curliss, Sansone join Hastings administrative team WATCH THE VIDEO

Hillsboro Mayor Drew Hastings announced the members of his administrative team Tuesday during a press conference held at the Hillsboro City Building, along with the termination of some city employees. 

Richard D. Giroux will be the city's new safety and service director, effective immediately. 

Laura Curliss has been appointed to serve as Hillsboro's Deputy Law Director, and Debbie Sansone will be Hastings' administrative assistant. 

"I am very excited about the team we've assembled," Hastings said Tuesday. "(Giroux) is obviously my main addition to the administration. There's a number of people. Rick comes from a very qualified background, from right here in Ohio, which was important to me, and important to this community, that we have somebody who has an Ohio Buckeye sensibility. He has experience in Florida, and if he can deal with Florida city government, he can most certainly handle our problems in Ohio." 

According to a news release from the mayor, Giroux "is a Cambridge, Ohio native" and has 20 years of experience serving in municipal administrative positions. He has worked for the Ohio cities of Cambridge and Green, and his most recent position was in Wauchula, Fla. 

In a press release, Hastings said that, "My principal task is to help make Hillsboro a place where people wish to live and businesses want to grow. Voters overwhelmingly told us in November that the city can do better. I believe that we must." 

Giroux is a graduate of Ohio University with a degree in business administration and is currently working on a master's degree in public administration at the University of Central Florida. Hastings said that Giroux has experience "in budgeting, fiscal management, personnel and operations management and strategic planning and implementation" and that his recent work "includes securing more than $12 million in federal, state and local grants for key capital improvement projects completed on schedule and within budget.

"I'm confident that Rick will help us build a more prosperous future by refocusing on those essential services that are necessary to foster economic development and job growth," Hastings said. 

Referring to the overall administrative team, "I think we overdid ourselves," Hastings said. "I think we have the best team for turning this city around that could possibly have been assembled. Henry Kissinger, if we could have gotten him, that would have rounded it out, but we couldn't." 

Curliss was the executive assistant to former Wilmington mayor David Raizk for seven years. She was an assistant prosecutor for the Clinton County Prosecuting Attorney's Office, and she has worked as a teacher and a judicial law clerk for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. According to a press release, "Her legal experience includes criminal prosecution, government contracts, grants, fire district matters, insurance and risk management, compliance management and economic development transactions." She has served on the Miami Valley Risk Management Association, the Downtown Wilmington Community Improvement Corporation, Clinton County Open Lands and the Clinton County Trails Coalition.  

Sansone is the current clerk to the Highland County Board of Commissioners. Her position with the city will be effective in a few weeks, as she gives notice and transitions from the county. 

"She has a lot of experience having worked with the county," Hastings said. "It was important to have someone who kind of knows the ropes on a city/county basis. She's going to be a really good addition there. She's just very adept.   

Hastings said that Hillsboro Deputy Law Director Kathryn Hapner and administrative assistant Kirby Ellison will no longer be working for the city of Hillsboro. When asked if there were plans for additional personnel to be let go, Hastings said that there was "nothing imminent" planned, but they would continue to look at the city and its budget.

"I just wanted to get my close staff organized and in place," Hastings said. "I now have a team that I am to work with, and am proud of. I think we have a class group of people who I think are really going to help me make this town shine."  

Hastings referred to Curliss as an "unpaid adviser" in his campaign for mayor and said that he sought her expertise when it came to learning about municipal administration. 

"She has a lot of education on municipal government. It was a lot easier for me to go to the city of Wilmington and get clear, unbiased answers than to deal with my own hometown. She brings a level of expertise to this position that's really invaluable. I don't know if you will necessarily see her all the time, (but) the results of her work with the administration. I think that position of deputy law director will probably be somewhat busier than than it has been in the past because I think we have an aggressive agenda," Hastings said. "You'll see a lot more out of that position, I think, than you have in the past "

He said that his "aggressive agenda" should not be taken in a negative light and that the work will be focused on reworking city ordinances. 

"I'm speaking from a lay standpoint, but I think there's been a disarray ... We don't have an overall codified system. There are overlapping and unclear ordinances and regulations. We need to get our house in order organizationally. A lot of this is kind of unsexy, kind of boring work, but to really raise the level of the city professionally we really need to have our organization ... there needs to be more clarity. I think there's a lot of murkiness. You get two or three versions of rules or regulations depending on who you talk to, and we'd like to get a lot of things clarified so that things are transparent."

Giroux said that it was a matter of getting things "reformatted for efficiency. I'm not saying there are things that are in place that are archaic, but they certainly need updated, and I think it is very doable. I think we can really get things flowing so that we can get to the main portion of what the mayor wants to do. The first thing, as the mayor mentioned, is to get the house in order, and that means to retool it, to make sure that the public is getting the most bang for their public dollar and that they're getting the most services at the highest level of quality that we can provide them for that same money."    

Hastings said that he was not immediately certain if the deputy law director position was a full-time or a part-time job.  

"Six to seven" people were interviewed for the SSD position, Hastings said, and he "did not receive a lot" of applications. 

Giroux said that he missed being in his home state of Ohio and that he wanted to be a part of what Hastings was trying to accomplish in Hillsboro. He said he is planning to move to Hillsboro with his wife, Caryn.

"I'm an Ohioan. I grew up in Ohio, and I missed it, and my family and friends," Giroux said. "I missed the environment. I missed the people. In Florida, there's three types of weather; there's hot, hotter and hottest. There's three types of northerners: Yankees, damn Yankees and carpetbaggers. It's nice to be among Ohioans again."

Giroux said that he learned about the open position from the Strategic Government Resources job board. 

"It looked like a very exciting opportunity," Giroux said. 

Hastings said Giroux stood out from other candidates because of "his breadth of education, certification and experience. He just really stood out. I was going to go for the most qualified guy. There's no question he was the most qualified, in my opinion. I had the added benefit of him being from Ohio, which was important to me. I've been working on this for the last, probably, six weeks, myself and some other advisors."

"I've been diving in, pretty much head-first," Giroux said. "The first thing I need to do, based on the direction the mayor wants to go in, I need to make sure there's a comprehensive assessment of the city, its attributes, its status, things that are in progress, in conjunction with the agenda the mayor has for the future of the city."

The comprehensive assessment will be an extensive outline of the city's status financially and operationally. Giroux said he is reviewing audits and budgets from the last three years, as well as the proposed 2012 budget, "which I'm starting to tear apart and take a look at. The mayor was very adamant about making sure that it was not only a well-balanced budget but also very effective in addressing our operational needs for the rest of the year, in conjunction with what he would like to get done. I'm starting to meet department heads and staff. I'm very team-oriented. I think its very important to develop a very cohesive team for the city in order to get the public's business done."

A salary has not been set for Giroux, and Hastings said that it is to his credit that he has accepted the position not knowing what the final salary will be. Hastings said that Giroux's salary was "up for discussion. We're trying to work within an existing budget. To Rick's credit - which I like, I tend to be kind of a handshake guy, if you can talk and work around here on a handshake. He knows that we're working on a best-efforts basis. We want to get this current budget under control, see where we are, see where there's some latitude. I think he's probably worth more than the current position pays. But we'll see how that shakes out."

When asked about his decision to take the job without his salary set, Giroux said, "I am very happy to be a part of this team. The vision that Mayor Hastings has for Hillsboro is really spectacular, and I think it's very doable. I think a lot of the things the mayor wants to put in motion are going to be very exciting. I can say that whatever salary that is going to be negotiated is going to be within the industry standard. But I also want to make sure that the residents of Hillsboro (will be) confident that they will get their money's worth. The last city that I worked for, based on the salary that they had offered me in compensation, I brought in (a) 2,700-percent return on an annual basis for five consecutive years. I fully intend to make every effort to do that for Hillsboro. It's going to be full-out, flat-out effort, as long as it takes to get the job done. I think it's very important to put that in motion, especially in the mayor's first 100 days. I want to make sure there is a visible difference when we reach and cross that line. Because ultimately if you get the basics done, we rebuild the mayor's foundation, we can go to town on what he really wants to get done."

Giroux said that one area of expertise and a priority will be writing grants to seek additional dollars for the city and that he will be pursuing "new and creative" areas to generate funds.

"In my experience - especially in my 20 years in local government - it is much better to fund the city's initiatives using other people's money," Giroux said with a laugh. "Here's my logic to that: I want to make sure that we're generating revenue from as many sources as possible that don't burden the residents. I know the mayor is concerned about that as well. The tact is with grant money, they're going to give that money to someone. And I would much rather see Hillsboro get our fair share or more than fair share depending on the level of the generosity of the granting agency. But I think we should pursue any and every grant available to the city, especially those that are relevant to what we want to accomplish and if we can get them at a no-match rate. Obviously grants have various matching requirements, so you have to be very frugal about how we approach that." 

Hastings said that his immediate concern was finding a desk large enough to fit his stature, and Giroux said that he was settling into his office at the city building. When asked if he would keep his office hours in the city building, Giroux said that was still being decided. Rather than where he does his work, Giroux said the important thing is the work that he will be doing. 

"I'm very excited about it," Giroux said. "When I talked to Mayor Hastings about it on the phone, even when I was being interviewed. I was very impressed by the passion and the enthusiasm that he has for Hillsboro. I'm very privileged to be a part of the mayor's team."