After nine years on the job, something of an eternity in city manager years, Zach Walker is leaving Independence next month, but hes not leaving the city behind.

Because this was home for 13 years, it's not a place you turn your back on, he said.

Walker, who is originally from Trenton, Missouri, started with the city of Independence the fifth-largest city in Missouri and fifth-largest in the Kansas City area as a management analyst in 2012 and was promoted to city manager in 2016. He accepted the same post in Bloomington, Minnesota, last month and will head north in mid-October.

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I only am able to do this because I know this community is in a better place than when we started, and that's what gives me the peace and t

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