(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to "The Journal".

I'm Steve Kendall, Upper Sandusky, the county seat of Wyandot County, population of nearly 6,700.

But there's of course a lot more to know about Upper Sandusky.

And joining us to fill us in all the things that are going on there, is the mayor, Kyle McColly.

Mayor McColly, thank you for spending time with us today and welcome to "The Journal".

- Oh, no problem at all, thank you for inviting me to join you.

- Yeah, and tell us a little bit about yourself, because obviously the mayor, how long have you been the mayor?

How did you get into the political game?

- So I've been the mayor for almost five years now.

My journey into politics started with Board of Zoning Appeals.

I spent a couple years on there, got a little bit familiar with the government process, decided to run for city council in 2010.

Was successful in that venture.

Was nominated for, or elected for a second term after that.

Had a different job opportunity that opened up where I had to leave council for a while.

Came back on in 2020, and this is where it starts to get a little bit interesting.

We are a charter city, and our charter says that if the mayor ever leaves office during a term, that one of the seven people on city council become the mayor.

- [Steve] Ah, okay.

- Yeah, we had that happen in October of 2020.

And so, the seven of us kind of looked at each other, and said, who's it gonna be?

- [Steve] Who wants to do this, huh?

- Yeah, exactly.

A big change for somebody.

And so, I was the one out of all of that, that was deemed, I guess the best fit to step in out of everyone that had other careers going on.

So, it's, yeah, it's been close to five years now, and been quite the adventure.

- Yeah, and people have to understand too, because, I think you look at council and the mayor's job, those aren't, they're not technically a full-time job, although it probably feels like, you're putting in a full-time job as well, but you have another career, people have other things they're doing.

What's the difference between, being a council person, being the mayor?

How was that transition?

How did that go?

- So, well, so we actually, again, we're extremely unique here.

So, for most communities our size, that would be the case, is no one would be full-time.

Our city council, that is part-time, they all have other jobs.

But in the city of Upper Sandusky we do not have a city manager, you know, a city administrator.

So the mayor takes on that role as well, overseeing all the different service departments that are out there.

So, it does end up being a full-time job.

- [Steve] Ah, okay.

- And like the previous mayor, when he left, he said it's a 24/7, 365.

There's not really a break.

There's always something going on, so- - Yeah.

And you're basically, as you said, 24/7, you're on call.

If something happens, however large or small, they're gonna pick up the phone, or their cell, or text you or email and say, mayor, we've got a question, we've got something you need to weigh in on.

And that can happen any time of the day, night, any particular time.

As you've gone through the last few years, what's been your most surprising thing about being mayor versus what you thought the position might be like?

Although you've been watching other mayors do it, obviously.

Was there anything that once you became the mayor, it's like, oh, well that, I didn't expect that.

Did anything that came up like that?

- Yeah, it's, I think, not understanding the idea of the administrator portion of things fully.

I think that a lot of people when they see mayors, you know, it's on TV, you know, some sort of show they're watching and, it's going to different community events, ribbon cuttings, you know, shaking hands and kissing babies.

That's what they say, you know, for all of us.

And there's been very little of that, (Steve laughs) there's been a lot more of the day-to-day, nuts and bolts, making sure that you get everything done that needs to get done.

- Yeah, yeah.

Not as much ceremonies as people think, and yet a lot more day-to-day operational, just keeping things working in the city.

- [Kyle] Yep, absolutely.

- Yeah.

As you looked at this, I mean, obviously, you've been the mayor now for several years.

Is this, you're thinking about the next time you come up for election, you're ready to go again, is that probably what's gonna happen?

- Ooh, that's a great question.

(Steve laughs) Who asked you to pose that to me.

(Steve laughs) I've always said, that I wanna stay very present in the time that's happening.

And so this has been, this has been a really good opportunity.

It's been a really great learning experience on all that.

As long as I feel fresh in doing this, as long as I feel like I have something to offer, then it's something I could see myself continuing to do.

I've always told people that if it ever just became a job to collect a paycheck, then it's time to get someone else in here who's got fresh ideas, and ready to take on everything that needs to be handled on a day-to-day basis.

- Yeah, and the other thing too, you mentioned the fact that obviously it's a 24/7 job, you know, that has impact, your family is involved in this too because, when you sign up for that, they sort of sign up for it as well.

So, that's always something that's part of that equation too, is like, how is this affecting my family, good, bad, indifferent, that kind of thing, because it does take some time.

Your time is now belongs to, you have a lot of family members now in Upper Sandusky, 6,700 of them.

So, that's something you have to consider as well, I'm sure.

- Yeah, it's the conversation I had with Mayor Washburn, when he left his quote in the paper, was that, "24/7, 365", and also, you know, he'd missed a lot of time with his family and wanted to be able to, you know, spend more time with them.

And so I came in and that was my first question to him.

I said, “mayor,” “I have four kids under the age of four right now.” - [Steve] Oh, there's a lot going on.

- I don't know that not spending time or being able to be available for them, is a great answer.

- And, he's like, no, no, no, like, it'll be fine.

Like, you'll be able to figure it out, you'll be able to balance things out, and that is true.

You are able to find some sort of balance there.

You do have to learn to say no at a certain point, which is not my strong suit.

I like to say yes to just about everything that's out there, but yeah, figuring out how to make sure that you carve time out certainly makes you really intentional with that time, and makes you really appreciate everything you get to do with your family, so.

- Yeah, and most people would understand that you can't be doing everything for everybody all the time, that you have a life outside of being the mayor.

And some people are probably maybe a little less aware of that, but the reality is, yeah, you have to be able to, you know, still be a regular person outside of being the mayor.

We come back, I'd like to talk to you about some of the things that are going on, some of the accomplishments, some of the initiatives that are moving the city forward there, and talk a little about what's going on in Upper Sandusky.

People I think know about it, but it's, you know, not as much maybe as they think they know, so we can come back and talk about that in just a moment.

- [Kyle] Sounds great.

- Yeah, back in just a moment with the mayor of Upper Sandusky, Ohio, on "The Journal", back in a moment.

Thanks for staying with us on "The Journal".

Our guest is the mayor of Upper Sandusky, Kyle McColly.

And we talked about how you became mayor, your experiences being zoning council person.

The city of course, obviously continues to expand and develop, what are some of the, you know, initiatives that have happened while you were on council and now being mayor that, you think have been really beneficial for the city moving things forward, and some of the things you think have really made a difference for the people that live there?

- So, the previous mayor, he was kind of our infrastructure mayor.

- [Steve] Ah, okay.

- And that's important because my very first council meeting in 2010, that I went to, they said, “hey, there's gonna be a vote coming up today,” and that vote is on a $16 million water plant.

And so it's gonna be, you know, you need to be a yes or a no.

And I remember sitting there thinking, is this what we do?

Like we make $16 million decisions, like, on a daily basis.

This is wild.

So, it's not what we do on a daily basis.

That was a, you know, once every a hundred year kind of project that was happening, the timing just happened to be there.

So, I think the biggest thing that happened in my time on council was really from the infrastructure standpoint.

When I came back on in 2020, they were in the process of finishing the build out of a new wastewater treatment plan.

So, there's been a lot of foundation laid on the infrastructure side of things that really puts us in a good place moving forward to continue to build, you know, solid blocks on top of that.

- Yeah.

Now, and you mentioned of course, the dollar amounts.

Do you ever get people who say, well, it can't cost that much.

It can't cost $16 million to do that.

Is it difficult at times, or is it, have you reached a point where you can explain to people why this is what something costs or this is why we need to do this?

Because some people say, well, that road looks fine to me.

Well, yeah, but in two years it's not gonna look fine to you.

You have to have that vision to look downstream.

So how do you go about convincing people, when a large amount like that comes up, that it is the right thing to do and what's needed to be done?

- Well, one of the easiest ways to be able to do that anymore, is the fact that everyone has seen the prices of everything just go through the roof.

And so, now the logic becomes more so, if we don't do it now at this price, imagine what it's gonna cost in just a couple more years.

That delay that happens, literally costs hundreds of thousands, or millions of dollars, depending on what the project is that you're looking at.

So, it's a lot easier to sell in in that regard now based on where prices are going, but I think what people don't understand and maybe they have some sort of idea, but all the regulations that happen behind the scenes from a state level, from a federal level, you know, if the EPA says that you have to do something, you have to do it.

And so, there were a lot of communities when it came to water plants, back in that timeframe that maybe didn't take it as serious.

Fortunately, our mayor, and our council, our service committee, they all did, and realized that this wasn't anything to be played around with.

It was gonna cost our public, you know, more money on their utility bill, but it's something that just had to be done for the future of our city.

So, making a case for where we want to be, making a case for future generations, is really what we've done more so, you know, in the past couple of decades, than any other time.

- Yeah, and that's a really good point because people, we tend to live in the now, and we don't think about, what will this look like 10 years from now, 5 years from now, 15 years from now, that sort of thing.

And as I said, sometimes people look at, they, you know, they probably looked at your current water treatment plant, and went, well, I don't know, it's worked fine for the last 50 years.

Well, at some point back 50 years ago or whatever it was, someone did say, look, we need a new water treatment plant.

So, it's something, yeah, as you said, you have to show them that, okay, this is what we need to do to move forward, and if we don't do it now, it's simply gonna get a lot more expensive.

You just don't kick the can down the road.

So that's one of the things I think that elected officials deal with a lot, is that people say, well, why now?

This isn't a good time.

Well, as you probably have found out, there very rarely is a perfect time to do anything, because there's always challenges and pieces of things like that.

If you look at things like that, is there something next on the agenda that the city is really looking forward to addressing?

Similar to that, a project of that scope?

- Our big need right now, is some sort of, municipal for our offices, slash municipal court slash safety services building.

We have a lot of aging infrastructure just in terms of, city facilities that are out there, that we continue to make do with, and do the best that we can with.

But when facilities were built, you know, in the case of our safety services in the 70s, or in the case of this building over here, I'm sure probably the 20s or 30s, they weren't designed to meet the needs and challenges that we see today.

And so, you know, just even the expansion of our police department, our fire department, the different folks that we have coming in for that, just the facilities that we have, we've gotta make sure that we tackle those so that we aren't pigeonholed moving forward in who we're able to hire, which legally we can't do.

And that we're able to meet the needs of just everybody that would need to come on board.

- Yeah, and you make a good point that, you know, services, especially on the safety side, have changed dramatically from when those buildings were built, and the type of equipment that went in there.

Well, simply with fire departments, the size of the equipment can be an issue because you may have doors and things like that, that don't, if you wanna buy a new piece of equipment, well, we gotta buy it to fit the building we have, because we have to make it get in there somehow.

And you also make a good point too, that, those kind of things position the city for a better future.

If you do it now, it pays off down the road in many different ways.

But that is a decision that, you know, you and council have to sit down, and as you said, we do this $15 million vote every day.

Well, it probably feels like that at times, I assume.

So yeah, as you look at that, I mean, how will you go about that process of informing people or getting people to understand why you need to change and improve some of the infrastructure you currently have?

- So, that really is our big challenge that lies ahead of us, in the immediate future.

We have a ballot measure on here in November for a three quarter percent tax increase.

We, in Upper Sandusky, we've been at 1% since the late 60s when we initiated.

And for us to operate on 1% and to operate at an optimal level, it's just not feasible anymore.

The cost of police departments, the cost of fire departments, the cost of running a municipal court, the cost of having administration down here on the municipal side, 1% just does not go as far as it used to do for those things.

All of those services have expanded, because people expect you to be able to reply, you know, to respond to any sort of emergency, you know, in the snap of a finger.

And we want to be able to be as responsive as we can for folks.

So, there's other amenities after that.

There's the roads, like you mentioned before, you know, folks want us to not tar and chip roads.

(Steve laughs) Yeah well, on 1% we're gonna tar and chip, and we're gonna keep tar and chipping until we can't anymore.

If you want 'em paved, we have to have some more money in that line item to be able to do that.

And then we have other amenities around the city.

One of 'em that's probably the most divisive is the community pool.

And I'm sure that there's a lot of communities that are going through that process.

We had one close to us decide to close theirs a couple of years ago.

I think a lot of communities are making those decisions right now, on does it make sense to keep it, or just let it go?

It does lose money every year.

So I understand why places choose to close it, but I also understand that it's the focal point for the community all summer long, in our most visible park.

So, a lot of decisions be made, folks are gonna make those in November, and then we're going to, we're gonna, you know, move forward from there.

- Yeah, well, when we come back, let's talk a little about funding in general, because there are discussions in Columbus of maybe altering some of the funding mechanisms, i.e.

property tax.

We can talk a little about what, how you view that, in terms of what it might mean for the city in terms of funding and that sort of thing.

So, we can talk about that when we come back, back in just a moment with Mayor Kyle McColly from Upper Sandusky, Ohio.

Back in a moment here on "The journal".

You are with us on the journal our guest is Mayor Kyle McColly from Upper Sandusky.

And Mayor, when we left that last segment we were talking about, you know, you mentioned the fact that, yes, it costs more to do things now than it used to.

And of course, no one's a big fan of chip sealing except maybe the people (laughs) that are putting it down on the roads.

When you look at the way you fund things, and obviously you mentioned the fact that you have a, something on the ballot November to help with that funding mechanism.

Down in Columbus there's discussion, there's a board looking at property taxes and what we should do with those in the state of Ohio, you guys, I'm assuming rely on property tax, for at least a good portion of your budget.

What would it mean if that formula gets altered and maybe property tax isn't as available to you as it is right now?

- Well, fortunately for us, property tax isn't a large percentage of our annual budget.

So we're fortunate in that regard.

There was discussion early on, we've put this three quarter percent on for the fall, there was discussion early on, would it make sense to do just like a safety service levy, do a fire levy.

And the decision was made at that point, rather than have something that would affect seniors that are in their home, their property taxes going up, to go to pay for something that it was something that we would target on income tax, that way it's, everyone who's actively working in all of the retirement income, those kind of things that are out there, those folks, you know, those folks on fixed income wouldn't get affected by it.

And so, we were cognizant of the fact that, it needs to be sustainable.

This conversation down in Columbus has proven that.

And now, all the other entities that are out there that have these levies out there that are funded through the property tax that are on there, I'm sure that they're worried and they probably are looking at other ways of, how do we sustain what we're doing?

I think it kind of lends itself to, a little bit larger discussion, even though from there, I'm a person who, I would love the government to be as small as it could possibly be.

- [Steve] Right.

- And being in this role, coming into this, that's the mindset that I came in with.

The public has to determine what level of government do they want?

What size of government do they want?

What are the amenities that they expect?

What are the safety services they expect?

And then they have to choose to fund those at a level that will adequately provide for those.

So, I love small government, but I want the government to be the size that the people deem that they need it to be.

- Yeah, 'cause you're still, there's a level of service you're still gonna need to provide regardless.

Are you ever concerned about the things that come out of the state, as you mentioned earlier, state, federal, all the regulations, that, at times it seems some of them arrive with no funding source, and yet now you're required to add that to the list of things you have to provide at a cost, obviously.

So, that's gotta be part of your management skillset as well, is, how do we make what we have stretch further to cover these new rules and mandates and things that come down.

- Yeah, again, I guess I talk in stories mostly, but, I think that all of us tend to lose, lose a little bit of sight of, of whatever it was we were previously doing.

And by that I mean, that, you know, as you go up in government, whether that's from council to mayor, or you go from mayor to the state, or state to national level, or like, you just tend to lose that perspective of what it was like being back on the front lines of things.

So you start to make decisions based on what you think is best from an aerial view and not from what's best on the ground floor.

And so, yeah.

I think that everyone down there is trying their best, they're doing things with the best of intentions.

It's hard to realize what those ramifications are gonna be sometimes for the people in day-to-day lives.

- Yeah.

Like you said, what looks good at 30,000 feet, when you're down at the 30 foot level, suddenly it's like, oh, this, this isn't working the way somebody thought it was going to.

- Exactly.

- Yeah.

Now, we've talked about, you know, a lot of the ways, you know, operating government and that sort of thing.

When you look at the city in general, if somebody said, hey, why should I make a visit to Upper Sandusky?

What would be some of the things you'd say, hey, here's what you, here's why you should come here and walk through the downtown, or visit this location or that location.

There obviously are things like that there that people should know about, that maybe they aren't as aware of.

- Absolutely.

So, when I was a kid, we had Woody's Restaurant and The Steer Barn, and those were the two, it destinations.

People came from all over to go eat at those restaurants, and for homecoming it was a big deal.

That was the only time you'd eat there, kind of thing.

Our downtown, is experiencing an insane rebirth right now.

There are restaurants galore happening down there, there are boutiques down there.

There's a boutique hotel that's being built right now.

More restaurants with mechanical games going in, event spaces, to go in conjunction with everything that we already had up to this point.

So, we have first Thursday events, which I think those are becoming more commonplace in most communities to have food trucks, and have all those kind of things.

But just invite everyone to the downtown to check those out.

We have an amazing car show every year.

I'll get the number wrong, but I would guess that it's somewhere between 7, 800 cars a year- - Wow.

- that come into the downtown.

So it is three blocks in every direction from the center of town, with classic cars everywhere, which is amazing.

We have our fantasy of lights display, every December that runs.

It's down at Harrison Smith Park.

And Steve, I don't know if you've been to that or not.

- No, I have not, no.

- [Kyle] How many of your listeners- it is incredible.

The number of lights in there, it takes forever to drive through, but it's incredible.

It's something that definitely put us on the map for being there, so I would encourage everyone to come and see that as well.

- Yeah.

Now as you sit there as mayor today, where would you, do you have an idea of where you'd like the city to be when you leave it- I mean, I think most elected officials, almost all of them, go into the position saying, I wanna leave this better than I found it.

Do you have things, kind of rolling around in your head thinking, well, here's what we'd like to be, before I leave, here's what I'd like to accomplish, things that will move the city forward.

Anything like that that you're looking at long term, kind of?

- Yeah.

You know, in terms of a tangible, you know, we talked about the fact that sometimes you're doing things for the future.

I've told people all the time, like, we'll get this municipal safety service building done and I'll never, like work a day in it.

It'll be one of those things that we finally get it done and the next mayor, who will be sitting in the office doing it at that point.

But for me, I'm not a super, a technological kind of guy on things, but I've told many people, that's the mayor, that's the title I'll get, you know, when people remember my time being spent in this role.

The city was doing a lot of great infrastructure upgrades, but there was nothing on the technology side of things.

And it may have taken us close to five years, but we got automated trash, across the finish line.

(Steve laughs) So we don't have three guys on a truck, two of 'em riding on the back, you know, back breaking work, throwing all that stuff in there, things along those lines.

We're just trying to get to the point where we utilize technology, we utilize social media, we utilize the website, and not everything has to be pen and paper.

Not everything has to be backbreaking work.

There are ways to use technology that make things a lot easier, a lot safer for us.

And so, we're going to continue to push down that road.

- Great, well great.

Well we appreciate you coming on today and talking about this.

And the doors always open the future if you want to come back on as things continue to evolve there.

And you have other good things to talk about there as well.

So, Mayor Kyle McColly, thank you so much for being on "The Journal" with us.

- You're very welcome.

- Yeah, and you can check us out at wbgu.org, and of course you can watch us every week at 8:00 PM, Thursdays, on WBGU-PBS.

We'll see you again next time.

Goodnight and good luck.

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