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Virginia in 1973 with daughters Kathy, left, and Teresa.
“Whitey Wellens was the Clerk, an elected position,” explained Virginia, “and I became the administrator, an appointed paid position. It was 1972. I considered it more or less a volunteer job since the salary was so low, but it was full time plus more. Money didn’t mean a thing to me, not when I worked for the paper either. And there were no benefits like today. None.” Virginia remembered that the Highway 5 signs told the population of Victoria to be 400 in 1972. By the time she left Victoria in 1977, it was more, partly because of annexations. “We had outgrown the office space at the Hall and moved to the public school building that Marv Hartman had purchased and renovated,” she said. The public school closed in about 1970 when consolidation occurred, and Victoria kids were dispersed to Chaska, Waconia, and Minnetonka schools. After renovation the school building, which is still located in 2015 at 1600 Arboretum Boulevard, came to house Marv Hartman Construction, Dr. Dungey, Paul Storms Accounting, Community Living, Styling Headquarters, other businesses, and, as Virginia said, the office of the City of Victoria. New city offices were now two rooms and two doors. Virginia had the window on street side. Germaine had the front desk. “By the time I left Victoria, we had three full time employees and one part-time employee.” The full timers were Virginia, Germaine, and Larry Bodahl of Waconia who was hired, she said, as her assistant to help with the Comprehensive Plan. The part-timer was a planning intern, perhaps unpaid. “Wink Gay was our Public Works Department but I believe he was hired on a contract basis,” said Virginia. “Although we officed at the Hartman Building, we held our council meetings back in the Village Hall,” she said, “right in front of the kitchen, under the basketball hoop. We set up tables and chairs and there we were.” Later, when Virginia left and Larry Bodahl became Victoria’s second city administrator, city council meetings were held in the school building – either in the room next to city office or across the hall in the room by the water fountain and vending machine. Although Victoria had been incorporated as a city since 1915, people still called it a village because, as Virginia explained, “it was small and compact.” According to City Scoop pages in the April 1981 issue of the Victoria Gazette, "On July 1st, 1975, terminology in the State of Minnesota changed for the sake of simplicity and uniformity." The term ‘village’ disappeared from the legal vernacular when it came to small cities. In any case, Virginia remembers that Schoell and Madson was the consulting engineering firm for the City of Victoria. Also, she said, “I hired Mike Liddicoat – he was the intern -- to also help with the Master Plan being required by the Met Council. Mike ended up in County Parks. To keep up with things I took a couple courses at the University of Minnesota in city administration. They were fabulous courses.” And then Virginia was hired away from Victoria. She told how it happened. “Carver County was advertising for a Zoning Administrator, and Pat Murphy walked into my Victoria office one day and said, ‘I’d like you to apply for the job.’ Pat was County Engineer in their Public Works Department. I got the job, and I got paid quite well. I started out as their Zoning Administrator and ended up as Planning Director. I got my Master’s degree in Public Administration from Mankato State University while working at Carver County. I think it’s interesting to note that Planning and Public Works were the first departments in the county to have a computer.”
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The Victoria GAZETTE |
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February 2015 |
