York County Emergency Manager Gary Petersen retiring after 17 years of service

​YORK – For the past 17 years, Gary Petersen has been the York County Emergency Manager and for the past 31 years he’s served as the same for Seward County. He’s been able to serve both counties thanks to an interlocal agreement to share the costs of the position.

​Now, that’s about to change as Petersen has announced his upcoming retirement.
In a letter to the York County Commissioners, he said his final day will be Jan. 2.
“I appreciate the opportunity to have served Seward County for over 31 years, York County for over 17 years and the opportunity to work with the best response agencies and fire/rescue departments in the country.”
During their regular meeting Tuesday morning, York county Commissioner Chairman Randy Obermier noted how the interlocal agreement with Seward County has been in place for many years.
“I had a conversation with the chairman of the Seward County Commissioners last week, but we weren’t able to finish that conversation. As far as I know, is they want to go it alone and not share the position in the future,” Obermier said.
Under the current agreement, Petersen has been a Seward County employee and York County has paid Seward County half his wages.
Obermier said the Seward County Board was also meeting at that exact same time and Petersen was in attendance at that meeting in Seward.
“We will know more about what they want to do, later,” Obermier said.
“Do we want to explore having our own emergency manager?” asked Commissioner Andy Bowman.
Obermier noted how counties have different sorts of arrangements, sometimes sharing the position with other counties, sometimes having the person in the position doing other work as well, etc.
Obermier also said there has been some slight interest from qualified persons who might want to take the job, as they have now heard about Petersen’s upcoming retirement.
“For now, I just wanted everyone to be on the same page about this,” Obermier said. “There is not much we can do until we know what Seward County is doing.”