Panama City hires new quality of life director with desire to 'complete tasks'

PANAMA CITY — Keith Mefford hopes to not only be a good local leader, but help get lingering projects across the finish line.

Mefford, 48, took over as the new quality of life director of Panama City on Tuesday. He replaces Sean De Palma, who was fired in June. De Palma was reached by phone Wednesday but declined to comment for this story.

Mefford is the former clerk treasurer and town administrator for Hanover, Indiana.

"I'm excited," he said of the new position. "(My family and I) have been coming here for some time. We've had a house here for about a year and a half, and we chose to make this home. Our kiddos are now in college, and we were waiting for that to happen before we moved down here.

"I felt like (quality of life director is) something I'd really like to do. I felt like (I was) qualified to lead this team and be a part of a bigger team."

Though Mefford said he was unfamiliar with the role of quality of life director prior to seeing the job listing in Panama City, he believes the responsibilities of his old position make him well suited to oversee the local quality of life department.

He also has about 23 years of experience working in construction.

"(In Hanover), I had experience dealing with our maintenance, our police, our parks directors, our senior citizens, concerts, events, (and) I actually built our amphitheater for our park," Mefford said. "I was the one promoting and scheduling all our events. ... I had my hands in doing quality of life and didn't even realize that's what the position would be called."

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He noted his initial goal as quality of life director is to "earn the trust of his team." From there, he plans to begin aggressively working to help complete ongoing projects throughout Panama City.

"Previous leadership was completely different than the way I plan to lead," Mefford said. "My hopes and goals are to initially, right out of the gate, build trust and confidence with my team first and foremost and have them excited about what we're doing.

"My next goal would be to start tackling some of those projects. ... I'm hoping (the city) can start knocking off some of these projects, and finding the funding and the time to complete tasks."

This article originally appeared on The News Herald: Panama City hires Keith Mefford as new quality of life director