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Fremont City Administrator Jody Sanders pauses for a moment in her office in the Fremont Municipal Building. She is the first woman city administrator in Fremont. Sanders and her husband, Randy, have two children, Chris and Amanda, and a grandson, Mason.
Fremont City Clerk Tyler Ficken looks over items on his computer while Fremont City Administrator Jody Sanders watches. Sanders is the new city administrator.
Fremont City Administrator Jody Sanders listens during a Fremont City Council meeting along with Travis Jacott of Adams & Sullivan Attorneys at Law in Papillion.
On her office bookcase, Jody Sanders has a photo of an older woman in a cap and gown.
That’s Sanders’ mother, the late Zora Pelikan, who earned her GED in 2002.
Pelikan, who’d married young, hadn’t had the opportunity to finish her education until later in life. But Pelikan lived the advice she gave her children:
“You can do anything you put your mind to.”
Following such advice, Sanders has made many accomplishments — not the least of which is becoming the first woman to serve as Fremont’s city administrator.
“I’m very proud to be that person,” said Sanders, who assumed the role June 1. “Fremont is a traditional community and over the years I’ve had folks ask, ‘Where are your female leaders?’ and so now I get to be one of them.”
A lifelong local resident, Sanders graduated valedictorian from Fremont High School in 1979.
“We were the largest class to go through Fremont High at that time,” she said.
She attended the University of Nebraska-Lincoln for a semester.
In 1980 — the same year she married her husband Randy — she began working in the composing/paste-up department of the Fremont Tribune.
By the time she left the Tribune nine years later, Sanders was its controller/chief financial officer.
While still at the Tribune, Sanders returned to school, attending the University of Nebraska at Omaha for a bachelor’s degree in accounting.
The Sanders family moved to Springfield, Missouri, where she worked in the accounting department at the Springfield News Leader.
“We lasted a year and decided Fremont was our home, so we moved back in 1991,” she said.
Sanders then started a job at a Mutual of Omaha affiliate and resumed working toward her bachelor’s degree at UNO.
It took persistence, but Sanders recalls the encouragement a former Tribune boss gave her about working on a degree:
“You can do nothing and in four, five, six, seven years, you’ll have nothing,” Carol Schmidt said. “Or you can work on something and you won’t have it tomorrow or the next day, but in seven years you’ll have it – if it takes you that long.”
It took Sanders 12 years to earn her degree in accounting in 1998.
She also studied and passed her Certified Public Accountant (CPA) exam.
During that time, the Sanders’ children, Chris and Amanda, were in junior high school.
“I could not have done that without my mom and my husband,” she said.
After she graduated, Sanders worked at Shaw, Hull & Navarrette CPA firm in Fremont for nine years, much of the time doing audits, including governmental ones.
Life took another turn when Sanders was approached by an employment consultant for the city, which wanted a CPA with governmental experience.
Sanders hadn’t been looking for a change and was reaching the point where she might become an accounting firm partner.
At the same time, her son was getting married and Sanders realized the city job might allow her to be more family oriented.
She became the accounting/finance manager with the city in 2007.
Former Mayor Skip Edwards appointed Sanders as director of finance for the city in 2011.
“I was his (Edwards) last official appointment before he retired,” Sanders said.
When former Fremont City Administrator Brian Newton retired, Mayor Joey Spellerberg asked if Sanders would serve as interim city administrator in December 2021.
Sanders agreed, because she wanted to serve the city and it would be for a short time.
She didn’t think a permanent position as city administrator would appeal to her.
“It’s very people-oriented and for an accountant who has spent so many years on third floor in that quiet office in the corner — I felt like it could do it, but I wasn’t sure if I would enjoy it,” she said.
But Sanders discovered she likes the people aspect.
“I like the idea of helping all 27,141 residents of Fremont,” she said.
Sanders noted that Spellerberg is a purpose-driven person with high ethical standards, who wants to treat everyone fairly.
“His sense of integrity inspired me,” she said. “I have to live by a code of ethics as a CPA and as a government finance officer. I really felt in tune with what the mayor was promoting and so I applied for the (permanent) position.”
Sanders’ job as administrator involves managing these people and services:
* Public works/engineering/airport/street department;
* Parks and recreation department, which includes Ridge Cemetery, Splash Station and Ronin Pool;
Sanders enjoys helping people — whether it’s an employee or a resident with a concern.
“The hard parts are the times when you have to say ‘no,’” she said, adding that Spellerberg has been willing to tackle those issues.
Sanders appreciates the community support.
“I’ve been approached by people at restaurants, or what have you, and they’ve been very supportive of me,” she said.
Sanders said she wants to continue doing the best she can to make Fremont a great place to live, work and raise a family.
She knows challenges lie ahead. Politicians are vowing to reduce property taxes in Nebraska, which are about 50% of what supports city operations.
“We’re getting about $6 million in property tax a year and efforts to reduce that — while admirable for the residents — makes us look for other revenue streams to support the services that we have been providing,” Sanders said.
Angie Olson, executive assistant and grant coordinator, spends a great deal of time looking for grant opportunities and other funding sources.
“We have a renewed focus on getting all the grant dollars we can reasonably obtain,” Sanders said.
There are multiple needs. Many buildings on city properties haven’t perhaps been maintained the best, she said.
She looks at improvements hopefully within the next five years.
The city auditorium already has been renovated and the library is being expanded. A police station will be built.
“We will likely be doing, at the very least, renovations, but perhaps building a new fire station. We’re looking at a possible satellite location for a fire station,” she said.
Streets, parks and forestry departments will move into a new facility being built near the water treatment plant on Luther Road.
Sanders’ goal is to maintain these new structures properly so the city won’t be looking to replace them in the foreseeable future.
Sanders added she wouldn’t have taken the job without the support of city department heads.
“We’re a team,” Sanders said. “We’re going to get things done and we all respect our various disciplines. We should be listening to these experts. That’s their job and they’ve studied long and hard to gain that expertise.
“If we didn’t have folks like that in place, I would have thought twice about applying.”
“I do love my job and would encourage people to consider a career in government,” she said. “You hear it everywhere … it doesn’t matter whether you’ve been on the job 10 days or 40 years – there are never two days the same. There’s something new and interesting every single day.”
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Fremont City Administrator Jody Sanders pauses for a moment in her office in the Fremont Municipal Building. She is the first woman city administrator in Fremont. Sanders and her husband, Randy, have two children, Chris and Amanda, and a grandson, Mason.
Fremont City Clerk Tyler Ficken looks over items on his computer while Fremont City Administrator Jody Sanders watches. Sanders is the new city administrator.
Fremont City Administrator Jody Sanders listens during a Fremont City Council meeting along with Travis Jacott of Adams & Sullivan Attorneys at Law in Papillion.
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