Right Leader, Through Tough Time Kellogg Mayor Steps Down, And Only He Sees Shortcomings

Few have served in more interesting times. As Kellogg mayor from January 1985 to the present, Mervin Hill piloted his town through the devastation left in the wake of mine closures, and the throes of the Superfund process.

He seems to regard the experience more as a blessing than a curse.

“I love this place. It was a unique opportunity to help it pioneer a new direction,” said Hill, who announced his resignation at Kellogg’s regular City Council meeting last week.

He’ll spend more time with his family, he said.

“These personal things, you have to take it in your head to take care of them,” he said.

Two years remain in Hill’s term, but the council wasn’t surprised. He’d warned his colleagues he wouldn’t serve past December.

“I think my time has come and gone,” said Hill, 66. “The town has new faces, businesses, attitudes…”

Many of the changes are due directly to Hill. Elected to the Kellogg City Council in 1982, he arrived in office just in time to face the confusion brought about by the closure of the Bunker Hill Mine.

“That was a pretty scary situation,” said Jim Vergobbi, Hill’s predecessor as mayor, who later became a Shoshone County commissioner. “It wasn’t easy to figure out exactly where we were or what we were going to do. It took some very good thinking.”

“Even on the council, everyone was broke,” Hill said. “Property values were nothing. We had no chance to work with proper funds.”

Lou Horvath, a state lawmaker for 17 years, saw in Hill just the man needed to supervise a destitute city. Business manager of the Kellogg School District since 1964, Hill was an old hand at purchasing everything from office supplies to vehicles.

“He knew where to find good prices. He knew which requests were reasonable and which weren’t. He knew how to set priorities,” said Horvath, who also worked for the school district when he wasn’t in Boise.

Kellogg Police Chief John Crawford praised Hill’s people skills - particularly the way they held up under pressure.

“When the cards were down and things were tough, the mayor was able to make light of it,” Crawford said. “He knew how to get people to work together.”

In Kellogg in the mid-‘80s, that was crucial.

“There were a lot of different groups and committees trying to brainstorm ideas to help the town survive, but for a while we weren’t getting anywhere,” Hill said.

Eventually the City Council took the helm. Under the leadership of men like Hill, Bernard Goodson and Wayne Ross, Kellogg came to believe in the vision of itself as an Alpine ski resort, complete with a gondola. (The old dirt road up Silver Mountain, then called Silverhorn, was tortuous in the summer and terrifying in winter.)

“That was quite a sales job,” Hill remarked, understating the case.

The gondola had to be sold to public representatives at state and federal levels before the town could obtain the hefty subsidy needed to make the project possible. And it had to be sold to Kellogg citizens, who would have to pass a steep tax to come up with their share of the funding.

Both miracles came to pass. The Silver Mountain gondola lurched into action in June 1989.

“I think the biggest challenge was to make people believe in themselves, make them believe in their chance to make things fly,” said Hill. “A lot of communities would have folded up and died.”

That challenge of keeping the faith didn’t end with the opening of Silver Mountain, he admits.

“At one time, we had the mistaken idea that we could accomplish our goals in a five-year period. Change is coming slower than we planned,” he said. “The work could take 25 years, or 30. It never really ends.”

The Superfund cleanup of Bunker Hill also took longer than expected.

“When they (Environmental Protection Agency personnel) came to town (in 1983), the first thing we said was, ‘We know you need studies. But please don’t study your studies,”’ Hill recalled.

“I think the greatest disappointment there was the length of time it took to do the studies and get on with the job. But at last it’s finally getting where it needs to be,” he said, marveling at the changes already visible.

“We have trees, grass, things I never imagined we’d have in my lifetime. It’s getting to be a beautiful little place.”

A few unfinished projects nag at the mayor as he steps down from office. He would have liked to see Silver Mountain safely transferred to a new owner. He wishes that Milo Creek’s flooding problems could have been addressed. A few details about uptown Kellogg’s new facelift still need to be set right.

But no one but Hill is thinking about what Hill didn’t do.

“What’s happened in Kellogg is a tribute to the vision of people like Merv Hill,” said Vergobbi.

“I admire people who step up to the plate and say, ‘I’ll try to make a difference,”’ agreed Crawford. “That’s what he did.”