There he was back in city hall in a city he represented as a councilman and mayor for nearly 20 years.

Dressed in dark blue pants and a white open-collar button-down shirt, former Warsaw Mayor Jeff Plank didn’t look too much different than he did when he left the old city hall for the final time in April 1997 after deciding to pursue a quieter life in the private sector.

Still sporting a beard that has grown a little grayer over the years, the former four-term mayor was at city hall Monday in a more subdued, reflective fashion, greeting old friends and former colleagues at an open house organized by Mayor Joe Thallemer.

Plank and his wife, Jodene, married and living in the city since the early 1970s, are preparing to move to northwest Indiana just south of Chicago to be closer to family.

One of the first people in the door at the open house Monday was Jean Northenor, the longtime local Republican leader who watched Plank transition from a Democrat city councilman to a Republican mayor.

While the transition made for endless political hay, Northenor’s appreciation echoed Monday for Plank had little to do with politics.

“You made an impact on this community that nobody can ever take away from you, Jeff,” Northenor said. “I don’t know of a mayor who’s made any greater impact than you.”

Plank’s tenure as mayor was filled with change that is still evolving today, according to several people who were part of his administration and attended Monday’s sendoff.

Among his accomplishments was the widening of Ind. 15 North and the extension of sewer services.

But his biggest mark was in the center of the city where he was able to transform the old Center Lake ball fields into Central Park while at the same time centralizing community athletics by establishing the City County Athletic Complex.

Plank calls those two efforts the twin projects and were accomplished with a combination of tax increment financing and corporate support.

In a matter of few short years in the early 1990s, the city was able to put into play a plan that saw Zimmer construct its world headquarters where the old freshman high school had been south of Center Lake Park and then use tax increment financing to fund development of the new Central Park.

At the same time, Plank was able to round up corporate support to construct the CCAC on land provided by R.R. Donnelly just west of the city.

“My fondest memory is the support I had from the corporate community,” Plank said during a short interview at the open house.

Cooperation with development of the CCAC, Plank said, showed “the commitments that all major industries made to the payoff of a loan so that CCAC could come into existence.”

Thallemer called Plank a visionary and thinks his willingness to embrace TIF – a new government tool at the time – made a huge difference that continues to pay off today as the city embarks on a mixed use development using money from the same TIF district Plank initiated.

“He stood his ground and he implemented the things he wanted to implement and people respected that,” Thallemer said.

“A lot of the things he did made it easier for the next mayor and the next mayor to build on,” Thallemer said.

Asked about the visionary label, Plank said he credits the changes that were made to listening to people and “winnowing it down to things people need.”

“The No. 1 thing a mayor can do for a community is to focus on economic development that is going to produce tax revenues,” Plank said. “That’s what you need. That’s the lifeblood of the community.”

After leaving office, Plank spent the next 17 years with three companies and retired three years ago.

Plank, 69, and his wife will be moving in about two weeks to a small town called St. John, where Ryan, one of their three sons, lives. Another son, Justin, resides in  nearby in Geneva, Ill. A third, Andy, lives in Switzerland, and Jodene joked about the proximity and importance of living near O’Hare Airport.

Plank, who said he viewed himself as a “cheerleader for the community,” often referred to Warsaw as having the “vison of Jules Verne and the spirit of Mayberry.”

He downplayed the attention focused on him Monday.

“The only part of it that was me was taking advantage of the enthusiasm that people had for the community and capitalizing on it.”

In the years since leaving politics, Plank said he has enjoyed driving around the city and seeing the changes that have developed.

“It’s a wonderful thing, particularly when the parks are full, large and small,” he said. “The city right now is still enhancing the park system. It’s a great thing.”