McKee named new city manager of Holton

Holton’s search for a new city manager is over — and the Holton City Commission didn’t have to look too far to find one.

During Monday’s city commission meeting, commissioners voted to offer the city manager’s position to Assistant City Manager Kerwin McKee, a 20-year employee of the City of Holton.

McKee accepted the position, effective Monday, Aug. 1, following a 30-minute executive session for discussion of non-elected personnel matters near the end of Monday’s meeting.

A lifetime resident of Holton, McKee will succeed Bret Bauer, who served as city manager of Holton since July of 2010 before leaving the city in June for a similar position in Gun Barrel City, Texas.

McKee was hired by the City of Holton in 1996 as the city’s codes enforcement officer under then-City Manager Brad Mears, but was promoted to interim city manager when Mears left in August 2007. McKee held the interim city manager position until the hiring of Glenn Rodden as city manager that November, then was named acting city manager in March 2009 after Rodden resigned.

When Bauer was hired as city manager in the summer of 2010, McKee was promoted to assistant city manager. He was again named acting city manager after Bauer’s recent departure.

Holton City Clerk Teresa Riley said the new position will give McKee a base salary of $65,000. Previously, Riley noted, McKee was earning an annual salary of $56,888 as assistant city manager; Bauer’s salary at the time of his departure was $73,798.

Riley said the details of McKee’s city manager contract will be finalized at the next city commission meeting, scheduled for Aug. 1 at Holton City Hall.

In other business on Monday, commissioners heard a report from Holton Municipal Swimming Pool Manager Emily Montgomery on activities at the pool this summer, as well as how the water level was holding up at the pool in light of recent leaks noted there. Montgomery said that while the leak situation was “not completely fixed,” efforts to maintain the pool’s water level were “back on track.”

Montgomery, who is in her second year as pool manager and ninth year as a pool employee, also told commissioners that sales of admissions and concesssions at the pool had increased from 2015 to 2016, with receipts $800 ahead of where they were at this point last year. Most of that increase, she said, is from pool admissions.

Montgomery also told commissioners that the telephone landline at the pool had been replaced, and another line has been added at the pool’s pump house. She also noted that the pool has a staff of 18 for this summer. 

Commissioners also:

* Approved minutes from the commission’s July 5 meeting.

 Approved budget appropriations made since the July 5 meeting.

* Noted that Ray and Leesa Harshaw of Holton had been named winners of the city’s sixth-annual “Yard of the Year” contest.

* Approved a zoning change on property located in the 400 block of Dakota Avenue, formerly known as the Jackson County Fair’s rabbit and poultry building, from R-3 (multiple-family residential) to C-S (commercial use district). Jackson County Fair Association President Aaron Allen told commissioners that “an interested party” is looking to purchase the property for retail commercial use but noted he was not at liberty to disclose who the “interested party” was at the present time.

* Heard the city’s audit report from Mike Peroo of Leavenworth in regard to the city’s proposed budget for 2017 (see related story).

* Adjourned the meeting at 9:15 p.m. All commissioners were present.