Benjamin Bitter, via City of Maricopa
By Elias Weiss | InMaricopa
In 2015, Ben Bitter dispatched cops to the frontlines of a protest on the steps of a federal courthouse to tangle with Westboro Baptist Church extremists.
As a landmark ruling on gay marriage made headlines and history inside, the Ashland, Ky., city manager found himself in the eye of a storm of national press and FBI agents, looking on from his office just across the street.
“It was a surreal moment,” Bitter said during an interview with InMaricopa last month at Maricopa City Hall. He looked pensively out the sunlit window of the well-appointed office he will soon inherit.
“It became very clear that the role of a manager is to lead, often through times of crisis,” he recalled. “I’ve used those leadership lessons every day since then.”
