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Kate Fitzpatrick holds up an honorary street sign with her name during a June 26 party in honor of her retirement as the town manager in Needham.
Longtime Needham Town Manager Kate Fitzpatrick recently finished her decades-long tenure with the kind of work ethic that has defined her career: finishing performance evaluations, compiling a “massive” to-do list for her successor, Katie King, and, in her last act, riding off as the grand marshal in Needham’s Fourth of July Parade.
Shortly before signing off in a town where she served for 35 years, Fitzpatrick said that she plans to stay busy. On July 28, she will assume her new role as the Northeast regional director for the International City/County Management Association. Though she said she “can do self-reflection later,” she recently took time with the MMA to look back on her legacy in local government.
“I guess I’m very proud of working hard and being here,” Fitzpatrick said. “The work is for the town, and its infrastructure, and the people who live here, and that’s been my focus for 35 years — to help our employees do their jobs, and to help the residents who moved here because they feel there’s a sense of community here.”
On June 26, Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll, state and town officials, MMA Executive Director Adam Chapdelaine, and Lexington Town Manager Steve Bartha, among others, gathered to celebrate Fitzpatrick’s career in Needham, in roles including personnel director, assistant town administrator, town administrator, and two decades as town manager. At a party emceed by her daughter, Westwood Deputy Town Administrator Molly Fitzpatrick, she received an ICMA lifetime award and an honorary street sign bearing her name.
Fitzpatrick was president of the Massachusetts Municipal Management Association in 2009, president of the MMA in 2013, and served for more than a decade on the Public Employee Retirement Administration Commission. Her numerous awards and recognitions include the 2001 Eugene Rooney Jr. Public Service Award for human resources service.
In 2017, Fitzpatrick was among the co-founders of Women Leading Government, created to support women on all rungs of the municipal career ladder. She said it’s “joyful” to watch her daughter Molly serve now. She said she does give Molly work advice, “which she sometimes takes,” and “she gives me advice too, which I sometimes take.”
Fitzpatrick has also made an impression with her popular Very Kate blog, in which she shares insights on work, life and local government. In 2022, she drew widespread attention for her crowdsourced poem, “We Long For A City Where We Go Hard On The Issues And Easy On The People.” With a title inspired by Chapdelaine, the poem drew more than 50 contributions about people’s visions for a more civil and empathetic community during the depths of the pandemic.
Three years later, does she believe municipalities have moved closer to the kinder, gentler place the poem describes?
“I think people say we’re farther,” she said, “and I don’t agree.”
Fitzpatrick cites a 97% satisfaction level among Needham residents, and statistics showing that three-quarters of Americans feel good about their local government. Incivility and social media negativity remain challenges for communities, however, and emerging leaders will need to figure out how to recapture a semblance of in-person politeness in a more hybrid environment.
She wondered aloud about how to get “the sense of familiarity … cooperation and collaboration” of a small-chambers meeting when “you’re asking people for their feedback in a different environment.”
“I think that’s something that we’ll be talking about, that I’ll be talking about,” she said.
At the ICMA, Fitzpatrick said she will work with Northeast local officials, state municipal leagues and others to help advance the association’s mission and professional development.
She also plans to travel, and spend more time with her family, including husband, Paul, daughters Molly and Colleen, one grandchild, and another on the way.
Her legacy in Needham will endure through the new Kate Fitzpatrick Professional Management Trust Fund, which the town is establishing to support manager-level professional development opportunities for Needham employees.
“A mentor of mine is always saying that we need local government professionals, the best and the brightest, in the dark times, not in the best times,” Fitzpatrick said. “So this is the best time ever to be in local government and to join local government.”