Lakeville city administrator takes a job with Dakota County

Lake­ville City Ad­min­is­tra­tor Steve Miel­ke will leave the city af­ter 10 years to work for Dakota County.

Start­ing July 21, Miel­ke will be­come phys­ic­al de­vel­op­ment di­rec­tor for the coun­ty, a job that has been va­cant since the re­tire­ment of Lynn Thomp­son last spring.

Miel­ke, 56, grew up in Mankato and gradu­at­ed from Minnesota State University, Mankato. He be­gan his ca­reer as city man­ag­er for Janesville, Minn., and from there went to Hopkins, where he was the city man­ag­er for 17 years, pre­sid­ing over a large re­de­vel­op­ment ef­fort in that city.

He said he was at­tract­ed to Lake­ville's wide, open de­vel­op­ment po­ten­tial. Dur­ing his ten­ure, the city pop­u­la­tion grew from 49,000 to 58,000; it built a new po­lice sta­tion, and bus serv­ice was ex­tend­ed to Lake­ville on Interstate 35 and Cedar Avenue.

The coun­ty job will al­low him to con­tin­ue using his de­vel­op­ment ex­per­tise, Miel­ke said. He is look­ing for­ward to work­ing with coun­ty lead­ers on the coun­ty's stra­tegic di­rec­tion.

Lake­ville May­or Matt Little said in a state­ment Fri­day that he has re­spect­ed Miel­ke's coun­sel and ap­preci­at­ed his com­mit­ment to the city.

"He has had a great im­pact on the city and fos­tered pro­duc­tive part­ner­ships that have been ben­e­fi­cial to the en­tire com­muni­ty," Little said. "He will cer­tain­ly be missed as a co-work­er and a friend.''

Laurie Blake • 952-746-3287