Kilby would expand commission

02/20/09
By Anne Kazmierczak
Register Reporter

Jim Kilby wants your vote.
Kilby is running for a seat on the Iola City Commission, intending, if he wins, to turn that commission into a city council.
“Our three-person commission has worked so far,” he said, “but I don’t know how it’s worked. We’ve had good commissioners and lame commissioners. But you can have two people make decisions for 6,000 people.”
And that, to Kilby, is a fundamental flaw that must be changed.
“I’m trying to get the word of the people back into the commission. I think a five-man commission would be the way to do it.”
Kilby points to the recent replacement of the pool in Riverside Park as a prime example.
“We had numerous public hearings, with lots of people and members of the press. Then a meeting was held with only a handful of people. The pool wasn’t even on the agenda, and one commissioner said “I think the pool should be in the park.” Another agreed with him and it was done.
“There were still public meetings scheduled,” he said.
“We had a pool that could hold 500 people, and now we have a pool that can hold 200 people and can’t be insured. And we spent $1.5 million on it. That money could have been better spent.”
Kilby believes he could actualize the will of the people, rather than what he sees as a minority point of view currently making the city’s decisions.
“Mr. Shirley has a tendency for riding the fence, and it depends which way the fence leans. He has the habit of passing something then asking, ‘what did we just pass?’”
“We are literally approached by people all the time,” Kilby’s wife Sharon said. “Because people want a voice — they want someone who will listen to them, and Jim listens.”
Through 34 years with the Iola Police Department, the last two as its chief, Kilby has “befriended a broad spectrum of people,” Sharon said.
And, “He’s the only commissioner-in-running that has shown up at any of the meetings,” she added, “Except for Bill Shirley, of course.”
Kilby believes the current commission system is bad for the city.
“Our mayor has made zero decisions because he gets outvoted all the time. He’s had some great ideas.”
Kilby would like to see city department heads be hired, not appointed. Currently, he said, “If a person is doing their job but has made a commissioner mad, they’re gone, whether it’s good for the city or not.”
Other changes Kilby would like to see are expanding local infrastructure, primarily sidewalks. “People like to walk,” he said.
He also favors diversifying Iola’s energy portfolio. “The power grid is where we’re lacking. Westar pretty much has a monopoly on the grid. Is there another way? We have two Wurlitzer generators that run on natural gas that operate during the summer for peak times — I think we should look into another power source. West Kansas has wind — we’re east Kansas, we don’t have wind. But we could use recycled water. We have three giant (sewage treatment) lagoons that are putting clean water into the river. We could use that to generate steam.”
Kilby would also consider solar energy, or “Anything we need to be self-sufficient.”
Kilby believes Iola could use a year-round recreation center, not as a place “to baby-sit kids” but for family and community use.
“As a police officer, I can tell you, we don’t have a juvenile problem in this town, we have a parent problem.”
He said many kids are left alone, and a rec center would offer them a supervised place to be, and also encourage their parents to be a bigger part of children’s lives.
Kilby does worry about funding new projects.
“Grants are going to dry up,” he said. And “federal funds are going to the state, and they have other things to pay for” than rural community projects, he said. But, he said, Iola needs modernizing.
“We need a new one” he said of the local library. “The library has 25 foot ceilings that are hard to heat and hard to cool. The city hall does not meet ADA standards.” And, the Kilbys mentioned, the elementary schools especially need updating.
“But in this economy, it’s going to have to wait awhile.”