Cindy Hoffman honored for years of city service

OSMOND — During last week’s Osmond City Council meeting, Mayor James Bessmer presented Cindy Hoffman an engraved clock to recognize all of her dedicated time in working for the City of Osmond and expressed his deepest appreciation for her 18 years of service with the city.

Cindy began her work for the city as an office manager in 2002. Bessmer said it was not too much later that she was asking for more responsibility. She was then moved into the position of assistant treasurer to Bernice Blecha. After a period of time, again, Cindy asked for more responsibility, Bessmer said. The title of assistant clerk and its duties were added to her position. When Bernice relinquished her duties for the city in 2017, Cindy was promoted to city treasurer/clerk.

Kim Krienert was appointed city clerk in March of 2017, and then Sheryl von Rentzell followed as city clerk in March of 2019. Alexis Buol was appointed treasurer in January of 2020. Cindy has continued to help out in the city office since that time.

Mayor Bessmer commented, “Cindy has been a Godsend to the City of Osmond. She has not only done an outstanding job for the council, but has been a friend and advocate to many residents of the city. “

In commenting about her years working for the city, Cindy said:

“It is hard to say what I will miss most about my job because I liked so many different aspects of it. I can easily tell you what I won’t miss – the stress! With federal and state regulations and deadlines to meet, along with the regular work load, there is always something needing your immediate attention.

“I enjoyed the variety of things I had to do. I like bookkeeping and accounting, which is a large portion of the city treasurer job. I loved working with the public and made many friends over the years.

“I discovered I could write grants and won a few major awards for the city, including partial funding for the big playground set at Poolside Park and the fall material under it.

“The biggest challenge was when the city switched over to water meters. It was a huge job to figure out the technicalities of the water meters, get the billing program to accept that information and then come up with a way to give people a trial run before actually billing for real almost four years ago. There were times I wasn’t sure I could pull all that together but it ended up being a fairly smooth transition.

“That was probably the most difficult thing I’ve had to do, but every year brings its own challenges, like the legal requirements for the pool bond vote and street improvement districts. There was a lot of on-the-job learning and I would never have survived without the mentoring of Bernice Blecha. She answered a LOT of questions!

“I will certainly miss working with my co-workers Sheryl, Alexis, Tom and Caleb. They made it fun to go to work! I wish everyone all the best and know I am leaving Osmond in very capable hands!”

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