Mayor follows family traditions

Susan Nicosia learned what it takes to be part of a small community early on in life.

I got a sense of community service from my family, the outgoing Columbia Falls mayor said, especially the women in my family.

To this day, Lewistown is a different place, changed for the better because of her grandmother s and mother s influences.

Grandma was on the Highway 200 Committee in Lewistown way back, Nicosia said.

Her mom and dad were Scout leaders and volunteered with the Elks Club. Her mom got the art center started in town, and gave in other ways through the Chamber of Commerce.

The list could continue.

So when they volunteered, we volunteered, she said, recalling the days when she and her siblings were toted along on various parent projects.

That s part of what you do when you re part of a small town.

No wonder, then, that her elbow grease is spread across Columbia Falls city parks, along its developing bike path, throughout the city s recently adopted growth policy, in her children s classrooms and on youth sports teams.

It s just part of who she is and what she does.

Nicosia also has perfected the art of using her professional talents to meet community needs.

Trained in accounting and public administration, she earned her bachelor s degree in science in business administration with an accounting option in 1984 from Eastern Montana College in Billings.

While still finishing college, she worked as an accountant in Billings.

She didn t miss a beat in the professional realm after earning her first degree, working her way up from an entry-level municipal auditor to a senior auditor for the Montana Department of Commerce by 1989.

She earned her certified public accounting status in 1987, continued with Basic Risk Management Certification from the Public Risk Management Association in 1991, and maintained active involvement with the Governmental Audit Quality Control Committee.

Her work with cities across the state to check their compliance with financial and legal standards laid a solid foundation for what was to come years later at the helm of Columbia Falls government.

Her master s degree in public administration came a dozen years later from the University of Montana in Missoula.

But first, she signed on as director of business services for Frenchtown Public Schools.

There, the left-brain workout continued, as she rode herd on all school funds, data processing, internal audits, employee benefit programs and so much more that business managers do to keep a school district running seamlessly.

In 1995, she and her husband, Michael Nicosia, moved to Columbia Falls when he made a career move from being the Frenchtown school superintendent to becoming superintendent of Montana s geographically largest school district, District 6.

It was a pivotal year in Susan Nicosia s career and personal life.

It was in 1995 that their first child, Michael, was born. Carla was born in 1997, and Anna, their youngest, in 1999.

As soon as I held him in my arms, Nicosia said of her newborn son, I knew I was not going to let somebody else raise them.

I decided I would keep active with my profession, but not full time. My kids are too precious.

For the two years after her son s birth, the new mother worked as a part-time auditor for the Nordwick, Denning and Downey certified public accounting firm in Kalispell.

Now she continues privately contracting her accounting expertise to local government and not-for-profit groups, and just finished her second year of preparing the Flathead County budget, which comes up for final adoption next week.

Late in 1997, Nicosia was appointed to fill a City Council vacancy created as councilman Doug Karper moved just outside city limits. (Karper has come full circle, running for and being elected to the council again after his subdivision was annexed last year.)

Nicosia formally was seated on the Columbia Falls City Council in 1998 and hasn t left the table since.

She traded hats in 2003 when she began serving as the city s mayor.

In between, Gov. Marc Racicot appointed her to the interim Government Funding and Structure Committee created in 1999 connected to Senate Bill 184, the property-tax overhaul that has come to be known as the big bill.

Her work as council member and mayor left an indelible mark on her town, much as her forebears work left a mark on their town.

I can t coach, she said. Childhood asthma meant she could not participate in sports, and thereby learn the finer points needed for coaching.

But, with 20 years of government experience, she added, this is what I can do.

As a member of Parent Share, she coaxed the city s $15,000 for Marantette Park upgrades into $40,000 by helping to solicit donations from key community leaders who caught her vision, then helping organize a small army of volunteers to install everything.

Reservations for use of the park facilities doubled after that, she said.

Because of her efforts later, the $25,000 that the city had earmarked for parks one year was translated into $50,000 through a matching federal grant. She spearheaded the citywide phone survey it required, wrote the grant, then oversaw the equipment and landscaping improvements at Pinewood, Horine and Columbus parks.

Again under her leadership, Fenholt Park on the city s

east side made the shift from a neglected neighborhood park to a well-equipped fun and fitness play area next to the local baseball diamond.

Before the decade ends, the Pit-to-Park project an acre or so of land where Plum Creek deposits wood waste from its lumber plant across the street will become a grassy, treed area. Eventually, it could become a fully developed park, in part because of Nicosia s vision and work.

Under her tenure, a bike path connecting parks, downtown shopping area and schools was plotted out, and the city has paved half its ultimate circuit around Columbia Falls.

As she passed along a family tradition and toted her own children to government and community service engagements, all that government-ese soaked into the identity of her young daughter, Anna.

The infant grew into toddler, traveling with her mom to just about every local and state government work session.

She never missed an annual meeting that Flathead officials hosted for local legislators. So, by virtue of accompanying the Columbia Falls mayor, Anna became known as the Mini Mayor.

When it came time this summer for her mom to make the call on whether to file her nomination papers for another term as mayor, Anna had her own reaction to the decision to take a hiatus.

The way Susan Nicosia looked at it, her children are young only once. The girls are in softball now, and their big brother is in baseball. Many of their games are on Monday nights, the regular council meeting day.

She simply was missing too much of their lives.

My kids are really young, and I can always come back to government service, she reasoned.

But the way her daughter looked at it was a bit different.

Anna was really sad when I decided not to run, Nicosia said.

She said, You mean, you re not going to be mayor? I told her that no, I want to come to your games. She said, You didn t ask me & If you re not the mayor, I can t be the Mini Mayor.

Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com.