Lynne Ladner, former town manager of Ocean Ridge, has been named manager of the Seminole Improvement District (SID), which provides most of the infrastructure — from roads to utilities to drainage — for the City of Westlake.
Ladner is taking over for Kenneth Cassel, who had served as SID manager since 2013. When Westlake was incorporated in 2016, he also took on the role of city manager. Cassel resigned from both positions this summer.
The jobs are now separated, with City Clerk Zoie Burgess taking over as acting city manager while a permanent replacement is sought.
However, both Lander and Burgess are employees of Inframark, a private firm that provides staffing for government entities.
“My biggest challenge, I think, is helping residents understand the transition,” Ladner said this week. “Helping them to see the delineation between SID and the city. It’s a big change.”
Burgess said that she has met with Ladner several times to go over the finer points of district versus city responsibilities.
“We want [the SID/city relationship] to continue to work as seamlessly as possible,” Burgess said, adding that the municipality will continue to intake and pass along resident requests or complaints that should go to the district. “We’re not going to turn away any call from a resident.”
Ladner grew up on a farm in southwest Kansas before earning a bachelor’s degree in political science and a master’s degree in public administration from Grand Valley State University in Michigan.
From 2006 to 2014, Ladner served as city administrator in Hiawatha, Kansas. After that, she was the city manager in South Lyon, Michigan, from 2014 to 2018, and the same for Hart, Michigan, from 2018 to 2021. Ocean Ridge hired Ladner as interim town manager in 2022 and gave her a permanent position in 2023.
Of her decision to move to Florida, Ladner said, “I became an empty-nester and loved the idea of being where I could enjoy the water year-round.”
Ladner called Ocean Ridge “a great community” and said that she is proud of what she and her team accomplished for the town, including improvements to finance, human resources and customer service. She also oversaw a major water main project, the launching of a new web site, and obtained some $2 million in grant money for preservation and conservation.
“It was very rewarding,” she said. “The town had not gotten any grant money at all for many years.”
However, earlier this year, amid friction with the town council, she resigned.
“They wanted to go a different direction… [and] we mutually agreed to separate,” she said.
While working as interim finance and human resources director for the City of Pahokee, “an individual shared my résumé with Inframark… They contacted me and offered me the position [with SID],” Ladner explained.
The appointment became official Sept. 15.
As with Cassel, Ladner will oversee multiple districts — three more, in fact, in Palm Beach and Broward counties. She expects approximately 60 percent of her focus to be on SID, the board of which is dominated by Westlake’s largest landowner and developer, Minto Communities USA.
Ladner described her management style as “laid back.”
“My door is literally open to anyone,” she said. “I consider myself a servant leader. I would not ask anyone do anything I’m not willing to do, assuming I’m trained for it.”
“I’m very supportive of employees getting the training they need,” she added.
Ladner lives in Greenacres. She has two grown sons.
