Manager pick proud of past as Kokomo mayor

The Kalispell City Council's choice for city manager has a reputation as a hard-charging, dynamic leader, but he was soundly defeated in his re-election bid as mayor of Kokomo, Ind., and called by an Indiana blogger "one of the most unpopular men in Kokomo."

That comment at prospergroupthink.com actually was a response to the irony of an earlier 2006 Hotline article that cited Matt McKillip as "a real up and comer" the year before he was ousted in a Republican primary.

McKillip became the first incumbent Kokomo mayor to lose a primary election in 32 years. McKillip was mayor of Kokomo, an industrial city of 50,000, from 2004 to 2007.

The Kalispell City Council offered McKillip the job as the town's new city manager on June 3. City leaders are confident he will accept the offer, which calls for a $100,000 salary in the first of three years, with possible annual increases.

He is supposed to give his final answer soon.

The Kokomo Tribune newspaper published numerous stories about McKillip feuding with his city council, starting projects without telling the council and other public boards, and about civic leaders being upset with him.

McKillip disagreed with that portrayal.

"You'd get very misled if you followed the Tribune. … Reality versus what gets printed is completely different," McKillip said Saturday. The Daily Inter Lake interviewed him by phone Saturday and Monday.

Tribune managing editor Jeff Kovaleski said he stood by the accuracy of his newspaper's stories on McKillip.

McKillip said he had a good relationship with the Kokomo City Council - he and the council agreed on all laws that were passed and on most resolutions that were passed.

"I wouldn't say we didn't get along," McKillip said.

However, Kokomo council member Mike Karickhoff disagreed: "He had a contentious relationship with this city council."

McKillip used to be a corporate executive and he is now a corporate consultant in Kokomo. Kokomo's business and university communities asked him to run for mayor in 2003 as an outsider against an entrenched establishment.

In his re-election bid four years later, McKillip lost in the Republican primary by 57 percent to 40 percent. A third candidate collected the remaining 3 percent. Almost every Republican elected official in Kokomo's county opposed McKillip, said Karickhoff, who is Republican.

Kalispell has been without a permanent city manager since last October when the city council fired Jim Patrick. Myrt Webb of Columbia Falls has filled in as interim city manager. He hopes to step down in early July.

On June 3, the council interviewed five finalists and quickly focused on two -McKillip and Jane Howington, the Dayton, Ohio, assistant city manager.

Almost every council member and search committee member placed McKillip among the top two, and the council ultimately voted 5-4 to offer McKillip a contract over Howington.

"He had more spark than everyone else," council member Wayne Saverud said.

They liked his strong personality. They liked his extensive homework on Kalispell. They liked the fact he said increasing Kalispell's minuscule cash reserves would be his top priority. They liked his corporate experience and economic development credentials.

But some council members hesitated -wondering if he could be a loose cannon and whether he might have been a bit too smooth in the interview.

"He said absolutely everything we wanted to hear. That made me nervous," said council member and Howington supporter Randy Kenyon.

"He could be going 50 mph in a 45 mph zone," said council member Hank Olson. He also voted for Howington.

McKillip supporter Saverud said: "I don't think we should discount anyone because he has too much get-up-and-go."

Howington - who spent 11 years in Oxford, Ohio, as city planner and then city manager before moving to Dayton in 2007 - has more extensive city government credentials than McKillip. Oxford has 22,000 people and Dayton has about 170,000.

Her supporters on the search committee and council described her as solid, competent and capable of bringing change to Kalispell. But a few rated her lower than other candidates because of her quiet personality and the impression that she dodged a few questions.

"We need someone to step up. She's got quiet strength. He's got a noisier strength," council member Jim Atkinson said. He voted for McKillip.

It is that noisy 'strength" that apparently made him some political enemies in Kokomo, where the elected mayor runs the city in the same way as Kalispell's appointed city manager does.

By all accounts, McKillip inherited a budget mess when he became Kokomo's mayor, and he solved it - but the way he did it was not popular.

The city's budget was already many millions of dollars in the red, and another multimillion-dollar shortfall erupted by surprise about eight months into McKillip's term. Again, all accounts say the problems were not his fault.

However, McKillip asked the Indiana state government in late 2004 for an $8 million property tax increase for Kokomo.

And the state granted it.

Such a thing could not happen in Montana, but in Indiana, a mayor can legally get the state to raise property taxes without a city council's consent.

McKillip told the Inter Lake, however, that he had told the council in advance about approaching the state. And he defended the tax increase as vital to helping Kokomo out of a massive hole of red ink.

Kokomo councilman Karickhoff said Kokomo needed the extra property tax money to make up for earlier massive tax cuts that had put Kokomo in the red.

The city council supported McKillip on two appeals to the state to make up part of the shortfall, Karickhoff said. But McKillip went to the state without the council's knowledge for a third time for the final $8 million increase, and that rubbed the council the wrong way, Karickhoff said.

McKillip cited the council never trying to rescind that final tax increase as proof that it was needed.

He blamed his 2007 primary defeat on the tax increase.

"When I had to go to the state and make the appeal, I knew it would cost me the election. But I knew I had to do it," McKillip said Monday.

Kalispell council members were aware of this matter during the June 3 vote. However, they noted that was an extraordinary situation and McKillip's move was legal under Indiana law. Then Kalispell council members noted that such a maneuver is impossible under Montana law, and said they would keep a tight grip on Kalispell's tax situation anyway.

The Tribune also reported on several other controversies involving McKillip.

n In September 2006, council members and McKillip clashed in a caucus session over the mayor's budget proposals. The Tribune reported that council president Greg Sheline said after the caucus: "I was told [by McKillip] that I'm not smart enough to understand the budget, and that if I'm not smart enough to understand the budget, I shouldn't be on the council."

On Monday, McKillip said he never told Sheline that the council president was "not smart enough." Instead, McKillip remembered Sheline saying he was having trouble understanding the budget proposal.

Karickhoff said he was at that caucus, and backed Sheline's version as quoted in the Tribune.

"Matt was upset that we were not passing the budget. He was angry. He may not remember" making the remark to Sheline, Karickhoff said.

n As Kokomo's 2008 budget was put together in 2007, the city administration hired a financial adviser - the firm of H.J. Umbaugh Carmel - to help with the process.

At one point, an Umbaugh representative said he was not allowed to discuss the budget with council and the media without the mayor's permission, the Tribune reported. McKillip told the Inter Lake that Umbaugh was charging the city for every time it discussed the budget, and that he had already scheduled times for the firm to talk publicly.

"He wanted to control the budget process," Karickhoff said.

n Differing stories also emerged on McKillip's actions when the Kokomo-Howard County Public Library looked at a new downtown location in 2006. Library board vice president Susan Luttrell wrote an opinion piece in January 2007 in which she voiced frustration about how McKillip handled the project.

She was unhappy that McKillip approached the library board about setting up a commission to address the site issue, after having that proposed commission's membership already picked. She said the board also "expressed our deep concern" about the role a developer was playing in the process.

"We asked that he [the developer] not attend meetings we were involved with, but were told if he couldn't attend, the mayor wouldn't either," Luttrell wrote.

On Monday, McKillip said he never told the library that he wouldn't attend meetings. He also said a downtown developer was not involved in the site selection process.

Luttrell also said: "Often we would get letters or calls from the mayor saying the council agreed with him on something, only to find the council knew nothing of the letter or its contents -'such as the last one we received saying the mayor was forming a citizens commission and the council would abide by its decision."

Karickhoff said McKillip had good ideas and a good vision for Kokomo.

In fact, his Democrat successor as mayor carried out many of McKillip's ideas, Karickhoff said.

Nonetheless, the Kokomo council member faulted McKillip on how he went about tackling his ideas -unnecessarily irritating others.

"I hope he will have learned some lessons in interacting with employees and a council, and I wish him well," Karickhoff said. "In the right community and the right environment, he'll do well."

McKillip pointed to several successes during his term as Kokomo's mayor. "It was a team effort," he said. These successes included:

n Digging Kokomo out of a deep financial hole through a combination of cutting expenses and raising new revenue.

n Beautifying the city. This included obtaining $37 million in federal and state money to clean up a steel plant that had been defunct since the early 1980s.

n Modernizing much of Kokomo's infrastructure. This included rounding up $2 million in private money to build a new fire station - helped by a company that wanted the old fire station's site.

n Improving the city's relationships with some private organizations, and helping keep two bankrupt businesses open as they reorganized.

Although the Kalispell council picked McKillip as its first choice, council members -even some of his supporters - said they might have to keep a tight leash on him.

"We may have to cut off his legs at times," said McKillip supporter Atkinson.

Some of McKillip's clashes showed up in Kalispell's background checks, according to Kalispell Human Resources Manager Terry Mitton.

Mitton declined to elaborate on the reference checks, as did Webb, the interim city manager, who did say he thought McKillip will "make an outstanding city manager."

Mayor Pam Kennedy said the reference checks on McKillip found "nothing that was alarming to the council.. … as manager and mayor of a large city, he's going to have had issues with a lot of people."