PETERSBURG, ALASKA <br />
&quot;I need to get down to Colorado to help with my parents. And then I needed to spend blocks of time working on my house in Cordova, so I can get it sold this summer. So I&rsquo;ve got plenty of work. It&rsquo;s not paid work. But I&rsquo;ve got to get these things done and out of the way and dealt with at this point,&quot; he says.<br />
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Hahn says he got along well with elected officials and was not urged to leave. Previous City Manager Rich Underkofler left under pressure after conflicts with some council members.<br />
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Mayor Al Dwyer says Public Works Director Karl Hagerman will fill in until a new manager is found. Dwyer says he&rsquo;s not looking forward to the hiring process.<br />
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&quot;It&rsquo;s going to take a long time and a lot of money to get a replacement. And then we have to utilize our public works director, take him away from that job. The process, it makes a guy weary just thinking about it,&quot; he says. <br />
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Hagerman has filled in during past manager transitions. He says he and other staff will be able to maintain Petersburg&rsquo;s direction.<br />
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&quot;I&rsquo;m disappointed to see our current manager move on. But hopefully the city will be able to continue the momentum on several projects and important issues. We&rsquo;ll be fine,&quot; he says.<br />
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The city manager&rsquo;s resignation did not come up during Monday&rsquo;s regular council meeting.<br />
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Scott Hahn lists work toward forming a borough as one of his administration&rsquo;s accomplishments. Others include work on harbor improvements.<br />
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&quot;We weren&rsquo;t focused on that well enough. And we didn&rsquo;t have them in our project list. We&rsquo;ve continued our support for the library, which is great. Dealing with the union is a very difficult situation. People want more, but we don&rsquo;t have more. So I&rsquo;ve had to bear some of the brunt of that. But that&rsquo;s a function of my job.&quot;<br />
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Question: &quot;What do you see as the biggest challenges for your replacement?&quot;<br />
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Answer: &quot;Right now it&rsquo;s health insurance. It&rsquo;s astronomical what&rsquo;s going on with the proposals to this town and other towns like us. That&rsquo;s going to be a big budgetary issue.&quot;<br />
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Hahn says Petersburg&rsquo;s largest challenge is to keep its status as a top-notch fishing port.<br />
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He says he wishes he could stay and help pursue that goal. <br />
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&quot;It&rsquo;s unfortunate for me because I love this town. It&rsquo;s a great place to live and it&rsquo;s one of the best jobs I&rsquo;ve ever had. My wife and I and my kids have sacrificed being together to try to hope things would work out. But that isn&rsquo;t the case right now. So it&rsquo;s only fair to clear out and let somebody else step in and do some things. And if in the future if anything works out I&rsquo;ll be able to commit to something like this again,&quot; he says.<br />
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