By John McLoone

The Hastings City Council held a going-away party of sorts Monday night, as they wished outgoing Public Works Director Nick Egger well and sent him to the next stop in his career with a proclamation, a gift bag and lots of kind words and appreciation.

Egger’s last day in Hastings was Tuesday. He’s leaving Hastings for a similar job leading the public works department in Rosemount.

Egger’s tenure in Hastings was one month short of 19 years. He started as assistant city engineer in 2002 and was promoted to city engineer in 2005. He earned the public works director post in 2015.

Councilmembers each read portions of the proclamation prior to Mayor Mary Fasbender finishing by handing a plaque and gift bag to Egger.

“Nick, you will be missed by many and are appreciated by all of us here,” said Fasbender.

The proclamation talked about his leadership in “maintaining and upgrading the city’s physical infrastructure” including over 100 miles of streets, 13 bridges, 19 miles of watermain, six wells, three water towers, one water treatment plant, 1,300 fire hydrants, eight wind stations and one-hydroelectric generating plant.

“Now therefore on behalf of the City of Hastings, the mayor and city council, we commend and thank Nick Egger for his years of dedication and service and extend best wishes to him his new role,” Fasbendeer read.

Councilmember Mark Vaughn commented, “I was lucky enough to be on the committee that got to promote Nick to public works director, one of the best decisions I’ve made.”

“Nick, most of my experience with you is as a business owner and a member of the Downtown Business Association, and you’ve been a pleasure to work with. You were very, very excited to work with the businesses in Hastings and help them grow,” said Jen Fox. “We’re going to miss you.”

“We appreciate you. I appreciate you both as a colleague and as a friend. I think your expertise and your knowledge and your knowledge of the history of projects in the City of Hastings is going to be missed,” said Lori Braucks. “I just want to say that you do a job that is often criticized and not often thanked for. It’s sad that I haven’t had the opportunity until now. Thank you for all that you’ve done and thank you for leading our public works department through some sticky, tricky things and taking a lot of heat sometimes for that. You know that you have served the city with the best interests at heart.”

Eggers was humbled by the surprise presentation.

“Coming into my career all those years ago, I was really so excited about the technical aspects of things and being able to apply what I learned in college and put that to use,” he said. “But this career has brought me so much more than that. I’ve gotten to participate in such a wide variety of things, all of that with the greater good in mind.

“The intangible parts of it are the parts that I’m going to miss the most, especially just working with people and working with my teammates… “None of us get these sorts of accolades alone. It’s a lot of folks behind the scenes that help you out there. I have to thank every one of them.”

Mayor Mary Fasbender presented outgoing Public Works Director Nick Egger a copy of a proclamation honoring him, as well as a gift bag at Monday night’s Hastings City Council meeting. Photo by John McLoone.