Norristown municipal administrator Leonard Lightner resigns

Norristown Municipal Administrator Leonard Lightner resigned last Friday, officials confirmed in a phone interview with The Times Herald.

The personnel update came some time after an agenda for an April 13 council meeting, which was posted Friday, featured an item to select an “interim/temporary municipal administrator” to continue with operations.

“It was a mutual separation. You know, we’re always wishing everybody the best in our future endeavors,” said Norristown Municipal Council Vice President Dustin Queenan.

Norristown Municipal Council President Rashaad Bates agreed, underscoring that “it was good working with him during his time here.” Lightner’s tenure lasted nearly two years.

Bates and Queenan said they couldn’t disclose many details surrounding the circumstances leading up to Lightner’s resignation, citing legal reasons.

Tensions have been apparent between Lightner and some elected officials and area residents during public comment sessions and discussions at council meetings in recent months.

However, Queenan maintained the issues were less to do with personality and “more or less philosophy style management.”

“He maybe had a style that might have been successful for him … but it wasn’t just a me-and-him type thing, to be honest with you,” Queenan said. “Those are things that mature people can get over, because at the end of the day, the main focus is Norristown – not us and our staff.”

“When we’re at our council meetings, and, you know, sometimes we see the tension and division. It’s not really like that behind closed doors,” Bates said. “We ask hard questions, but I never really felt that there was much tension or division between us and Leonard. I thought we worked well.”

Bates added, “I just hope that we all learn something from working together,” and acknowledged he “learned a different style of leadership” and said he was “grateful for that.”

Lightner, a former chief operating officer for the City of Chester, was hired in July 2024 after former Municipal Administrator Crandall Jones resigned to take a job in Upper Darby, Delaware County.

Lightner officially began his position in August 2024. Municipal administrator responsibilities include preparing the budget, overseeing operations, implementing procedures based on authorized legislation, and serving as the municipality’s right-to-know officer, according to a municipal spokesperson. Lightner had expressed interest in bringing development and revitalization to the county seat, building on his previous experience gained working in Chester.

Lightner was faced with tasked with a number of obstacles over the last roughly 1.5 years as the municipality faced scrutiny with several high profile issues including the saga over former Police Chief Jacqueline Bailey-Davis, the process to replace her with the eventual hiring of Chief Mike Trail and, most recently, the fallout over an officer striking an unarmed naked man with a police vehicle, and the resignation of the former long time Public Works Director Thomas Odeningbo.

Bates said he was “not happy” to learn of Lightner’s resignation as he “enjoyed my time working with Leonard.” Queenan stressed the importance of making personnel decisions carefully as officials look to the future of the municipality.

The regular session of council was rescheduled to Monday from April 7, when the meeting was canceled due to lack of a quorum. Bates, along with council members David McMahon and Mydera Robinson were the only ones on the seven-member council in attendance.

It’s unclear who will be nominated to serve as interim municipal administrator, but Queenan underscored the importance of finding someone with institutional knowledge. After Jones left in 2023, Norristown Fire Chief Tom O’Donnell temporarily led municipal operations while council members searched for Jones’ replacement.

“I definitely think, just for continuity and making sure everybody’s compromising, … it should be in-house,” Queenan said, adding that he’s a “strong believer right now that we take our time to make sure we choose the right person that will help keep pushing Norristown forward. I don’t think it’s a rush type of thing because you want to get this … right.”

When it comes to searching for candidates, Queenan emphasized the importance of taking a collaborative approach by bringing in all voices from the seven-member governing body and hearing input from existing municipal leadership.

“I hope we all come and apply everything we learned through the past couple of years, where we can basically pick a person as administrator that keeps pushing us in a positive direction that we know we need to go into, and everybody expresses that they want,” Queenan said.

Lightner could not be reached for comment as of Friday afternoon.

State Rep. Greg Scott, D-54th Dist., told The Times Herald late Friday that he’s “had nothing but substantive and positive conversations with Leonard Lightner about moving this community forward” throughout his tenure.

“I really thought things were going in the right direction,” Scott said. “So I’m shocked of the sudden nature of this because I feel like we were making substantive progress about moving our community forward.”

Some community members expressed their concerns about a lack of transparency regarding Lightner, as questions about his status were rumbling through town in recent days, but Bates maintained that council leadership “did a decent job of keeping people updated as best as we legally could.”

Scott, too, shared worries over the difficulties this could create for the days the municipality operates without an administrator until an interim leader can be appointed.

“Right now if we had to declare an emergency … who’s in charge?” Scott said.

Queenan maintained department heads have the capabilities to do so.

“Each one of the directors run their own division, which is one of the beautiful things about Norristown,” Queenan said, clarifying the department heads would “report to us in a sense.”

Queenan explained the municipal hierarchy includes council members, the municipal administrator and department heads.

“We believe in our directors, that if something happens over the weekend, they can handle it, because that’s usually the police or the fire department anyway,” Queenan said, with Bates interjecting that “Chief Trail and Chief O’Donnell are good at handling that stuff,” referring to the municipality’s police and fire departments, respectively.

The Norristown Municipal Council meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on Monday, April 13 at Municipal Hall, 235 E. Airy St. Visit norristown.org for more information.