MORGAN COUNTY — The new county administrator’s first job was working for the Marshall Advocate, a small newspaper in Illinois. At 14, Kyle Swalls was not yet trusted by the editor to work inside the newsroom with the adults, but was instead assigned a job he likened to being a “newspaper cop.”
Some town residents were concerned their newspapers were being delivered to the wrong location, so young Kyle was to ride around the paper route on his bike and simply monitor if everyone got their paper. Swalls, at least for the short time he worked there, ensured that everyone did.
Of course, that was a long time ago. The Marshall Advocate ceased publication earlier this year, another apparent sign of the times. Conventional wisdom says rural America is in decline, which should mean rural newspapers don’t have a chance.
Nevertheless, after Swalls made it through the first round of interviews to replace Josh Messmer and become Morgan County’s second-ever administrator, he decided to purchase a one-month, digital subscription to The Correspondent as the Franklin Township resident wanted to learn more about the place he might end up working.
Swalls called the interview process very “competitive,” and described the job as a “once in a lifetime” opportunity, a sentiment not everyone might share about potentially working in Morgan County.
After all, Swalls was leaving a job in Indianapolis, which might as well be New York City to residents of small communities like Eminence or Brooklyn. But Swalls says he wants to be here. He declares his intention to never work from home, and to serve the residents of Morgan County in person each week.
After he got the job, Swalls purchased a 12-month subscription to The Correspondent.
Connection
Swalls formally began work as county administrator last Wednesday, Nov. 12, taking over after Messmer’s six-year tenure in the role.
He spent his first week meeting with all the county department heads, introducing himself and gathering information from everyone. Swalls took time out of his busy schedule to meet with The Correspondent at our office last week for an interview.
Swalls arrived in a black suit and tie, attire not often seen in this line of work, even from his predecessor.
The first thing he did once he arrived was apologize — The Correspondent first reached out to him for an interview weeks ago after he was announced as Messmer’s replacement, but Swalls wanted to postpone the interview until he was completely finished at his former job.
Now he is finished, and today he acts as one of the most powerful unelected officials in the county. Swalls explained his role in his own words.
“My role is to carry out ordinances and resolutions passed by the county commissioners,” Swalls said. “I make sure all their priorities are met, and I oversee all the department heads in the county.”
It’s quite the job, overseeing so much, but it’s a bit smaller than Swalls’ previous jobs.
Before coming to Morgan County, Swalls was the chief operating officer for the Indianapolis-Marion County Forensic Services Agency for four years, and before that he worked for the Wisconsin Department of Health Services and Legislative Audit Bureau. Before that, Swalls served on the Illinois Board of Higher Education and the Illinois Department of Transportation.
State agencies, urban bodies, a lot of people and programs formerly overseen by Swalls, and now he finds himself in a county with a combined population nearly on par with the city of Greenwood.
“At the local level, the things we (in the government) do are so close to people you see every day,” Swalls said. “I really like to feel connected to the people I’m serving. You don’t always feel your impact when you’re working at the state level.”
Swalls does not live in Morgan County, but he maintains that his familiarity with it and its people grows more every day. He describes the landscape as “beautiful,” and has taken his wife and two young children on trips to Anderson Orchard as well as a cabin over in Morgantown.
Despite his recent work experience at higher levels of government, Swalls does not feel out of place here. After all, while he was born in Terre Haute, he was raised just across the state line in Marshall, Ill., which isn’t much bigger than Monrovia, and certainly smaller than Martinsville.
“Where I live has never determined my dedication to the job,” Swalls said. “In all of my jobs, I’ve always cared enough to go beyond what was expected of me. I don’t know another way to do my work but go all in.”
Transparency
Swalls is becoming county administrator at a time when county residents’ trust in local government is eroding.
Morgan County Republican Party Chair Carole Snyder recently told The Correspondent that more Monrovia residents than ever plan to run for office in next year’s primaries over the data center, with residents complaining that the project’s planning process lacked transparency from local officials.
Even before Google’s planned data center mired the county in controversy, trust in local officials was already low, a phenomenon not unique to Morgan County, but felt at home nonetheless. Swalls did not go into specifics about how he might address the issue of transparency in Morgan County, but he said he understood people’s frustration.
“Transparency is really important to me,” Swalls said. “I want to make sure people are a part of the process of governing. People should always have access to their government.”
Swalls went on to say that despite his extensive resume and work experience, he was not looking to come into Morgan County and simply impose his will.
“I may have a lot of experience, but my goal is to listen and learn,” Swalls said. “It would be really arrogant to just come in and say, ‘I know what I’m doing.’ Yes, I have ideas, but I’m here to listen.”
Listening should be easy enough, since he will see us delivered each week to his home, detailing both the actions taken in local government, and what the governed think of those actions.
It’s perhaps too soon to tell if Swalls is serious about fixing the transparency issues in Morgan County, but at least one thing on his unofficial resume is encouraging.
That 14-year-old boy who once made sure everyone in town got their newspaper — to put it another way — helped ensure everyone in town knew what their government was doing. It doesn’t get more transparent than that.
