CENTERVILLE, IOWA -- Many Centerville residents were outraged this week when they found the temporary city administrator, Kevin Stocker, was on the Iowa Sex Registry. Tuesday night, Stocker officially resigned.
The recent hiring of the Kevin Stocker to serve as temporary Centerville City Administrator has had many residents up in arms.
Stocker is on the Iowa Sex Offender Registry. He had a conviction of enticing away a minor on August 25, 2006 in Black Hawk County.
At that point, he had been required to register for 10 years and would come off the registry in 2016.
“He had been recently divorced and he was depressed, he was looking for some companionship and he just looked at the wrong place,” said Jim Senior, mayor of Centerville.
Senior said he was disappointed that Stocker felt like he needed to resign.
“He was doing a wonderful job and I just want to say that if he needs a job recommendation that I’m going to be very happy to give it to him or to anyone that's curious about him because I’d say he's a heck of a good guy, very knowledgeable and did a wonderful job while he was here,” said Mayor Senior.
Mayor Senior added that he doesn’t feel like Stocker’s past should reflect anyone’s opinions about him now and believes him to be a changed and decent man.
“If they had the inside knowledge and time to sit with the man and to understand -- he was a changed man,” said Mayor Senior.
Stocker’s company called CAMPS, which specializes in city administration among other things, was selected and was then approved by the Centerville City Council.
A background check was never done upon Stocker’s hiring.
“He was not an employee of the city of Centerville -- his company was contracted. However, he was the owner of the company and that's where his coming here, he should have registered with us,” said Sheriff Gary Anderson of the Appanoose County Sheriff’s Dept.
“Everybody makes mistakes and I agree. I make mistakes. Everybody, you know,” said Mayor Senior.
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