Lee County Manager Roger Desjarlais announces retirement

Lee County Manager Roger J. Desjarlais has announced his retirement.

Desjarlais’s career involved overseeing a $2,000,000,000 budget and more than 2,600 employees. He remarked in his retirement letter, dated June 1, on how resilient the Lee County population is in dealing with the difficulties of the previous decade.

“Together, we have managed and cared for this community through COVID, Hurricane Irma, Hurricane Ian, flooding from record rainfall and a host of other events,” Desjarlais wrote.

Desjarlais spent his decade-long career assisting county commissioners in lowering the Lee County tax rate four times. Desjarlais also helps with planning and building roads and infrastructure.

Desjarlais spent his decade-long career assisting county commissioners in lowering the Lee County tax rate four times. Desjarlais also helps with planning and building roads and infrastructure.

The Lee County commissioners plan to begin talking about filling Desjarlais’s shoes at a meeting on Tuesday. However, on Monday night, Commission Chairman, Brian Hamman, is more inclined to reflect on the time they spent together.

“It’s a fluid rollout plan. It’s all happened so fast, we’ve never done one of these before,” Desjarlais said.

Desjarlais made remarks about handling Hurricane Ian.

“Do what you believe to be in your best interests. If you are uncomfortable staying on your property, by all means, go to one of our shelters,” Desjarlais said.

“When you look at the list of all the things that happened over the last ten years, just one of those things, like maybe Hurricane Irma, would have been historic. But you add on hurricane Ian, you add on COVID, you add on the blue-green algae crises,” Chairman Hamman said.

Chairman Hamman discovered Desjarlais’ plan to retire last week, but it was made official in a letter on Monday.

“He really leaves the government in a very stable place as he goes off into retirement,” Hamman said.

Hamman told WINK News it’s about time the county manager who go an “exceptional” rating in 2021-2022 gets a break.

“What you find is that we were very stable throughout all of it, even though there was crisis going on,” Chairman Hamman said. “I think the legacy is going to be that we were one of the most stable forms of government locally here in Lee County during his time.”

Desjarlais’ retirement date is July 31. The retirement letter can be viewed below.