WATERLOO - Don't walk too close to Waterloo City Hall Sept. 29, a rock of the Waterloo mayor's office is said to be leaving the building.

Donna Cutler has been a fixture at Waterloo City Hall . She officially will retire after 40 years with the city.

Cutler has spent 16 of those years as secretary in the Mayor's Office, working for former mayor John Rooff and current Mayor Tim Hurley.

"Donna was often the 'voice' of City Hall, the first person anyone with concerns, complaints, ideas or questions talked to," Hurley said. "I watched and listened to her perform this function for six years, always with courtesy, grace and even compassion, when needed. She held the deepest respect for the office of the mayor and treated me the same way."

Cutler, a 1967 graduate of West High School, attended the University of Northern Iowa for a year and Gates Business College before hiring on with the city.

Her first job was in the old Urban Renewal office under director George Griebenow.

"They had just finished acquiring all of the properties on Duryea (Street) for the construction of the John Deere Foundry," Cutler said. "I got to hold the $1 million check the city got from Deere for that property." The foundry opened in the early 1970s.

Cutler worked for Griebenow's successor, Dale Mercer, when the city bought property along Falls Avenue/U.S. Highway 218 for the widening of what is now University Avenue.

Cutler also worked a stint in the city's personnel office under directors Jerry Leeper and Carl Hollingsworth.

"When I worked in personnel, all of the payroll and insurance was done by hand," she said. "We didn't have all of the technology we do now."

That was at a time when the personnel office adjoined the Mayor's Office, and Cutler would fill in at times as secretary for Mayor Leo Rooff.

"I always felt he was like a dad to me," Cutler said of the popular mayor.

The next stop was a turn at the city planning office, where Cutler worked 14 years, from the late '70s through the early '90s. It was a busy time, as the city was undertaking one of the most ambitious initiatives of Rooff's administration: the Interstate Highway Substitution Plan, which totally revamped the entire transportation system of the Waterloo-Cedar Falls metro area. Like urban renewal, it involved a considerable amount of property acquisition.

"The big thing was to sell the interstate substitution concept to the (Iowa) DOT," Cutler said. "That was Leo's leadership."

After John Rooff, Leo Rooff's nephew, was elected mayor in 1993, then-city planning director Don Temeyer volunteered Cutler's services to the Mayor's Office.

"And after 16 years, I'm still here," Cutler said.

"I was so fortunate I found her and got her to accept the position," Rooff said. "She ended up being one of the best assistants to a mayor," often anticipating and providing him assistance before he even asked for it. "I give her a lot of the credit for my success, and the success of the city."

Her time in the Mayor's Office has been the most enjoyable of her City Hall career. It's different every day, she said, ranging from greeting business executives and visiting celebrities like former "Tonight Show" band leader Doc Severinsen, to taking a call from a woman who was trying to get an inaccurate charge removed from her credit card account - and some more original than that.

"I always contended that when it was a new moon or a full moon, you get unique calls," Cutler said tactfully.

"She has a wonderful gift," Rooff said of Cutler. "She could calm people down and give people hope everything was going to be all right."

To Hurley, who leaves office at year's end, Cutler has been a lifeline.

"Because of the nature of this job and our organization, it can often be suffocating in its workload," Hurley said. "To have someone with Donna's qualities and skills as your front-line assistant is absolutely necessary. She performed her job every day with excellence, and she'll be sorely missed. I wish her and her husband of 40 years, Tim, all the best."