Dear Rusty:
This evening’s Wheeling Council will be your last one after 44 years of service to the residents of the Friendly City, and we bet you will be relieved at the end of it. Why? Well, now, those are your secrets to tell, now aren’t they?
This Council and Wheeling City Manager Bob Herron will find the task of replacing you to be an impossible one. Not only are you the one person alive who knows how this city is plumbed, wired, and duct-taped together, but it has been you that we have looked to for the real answers when it has come to the biggest of all problems related to public works.
The person who is hired likely will be given your phone number by multiple people, but like most younger folks they will resist using it because, well, they want to make the position their own. Sooner than later, though, there will be those shoes to fill, and he will have no other choice but to respect their ginormous nature.
Those of us who have depended on your knowledge for many years will miss you and your expertise while we suffer through the inexperience, but we will always appreciate your wit, that smirky smile, and your willingness to get dirty just like all of the others folks down in those holes.
Thank you, Rusty Jebbia, for your service to us, and please know we have appreciated you all along. God bless you and your family, and may you enjoy retirement (effective June 3) as much as it appeared you enjoyed making Wheeling’s wheel always turn without a squeak.
Sincerely,
The Residents of Wheeling, West Virginia
