Brad Matkin, Fort Scott’s City Manager for approximately 1.5 years resigned yesterday, posting a public service announcement on the City of Fort Scott Facebook page.
Matkin said on October 24 he turned in a letter of resignation to the Fort Scott City Commission, effective on January 3, 2024.
“I will continue doing duties of city manager until that time and close out some of the projects we’ve got, and establish guidelines for the next few years, ” he said on Facebook.
“There is a lot left to do,” Matkin said. “We have only touched the very tip of the iceberg with our accomplishments. As a City, we must establish a Housing/Business Development Coordinator who works full-time for the city and goes and visits with our existing businesses to see if there is anything the City of Fort Scott can do for them. We worry so much about bringing in new business sometimes the great businesses like Timken, Peerless, Ward Kraft, etc. get forgotten.”
This Housing/Business Development Coordinator position would also help developers in their housing and business developments, finding grants, property, and opportunities, he said.
Other projects that Matkin sees as not completed are street, water, and wastewater 2024 and 2025 programs that need to be developed and executed, along with several other tasks.
“You sacrifice a lot with this position and family is very important to me,” he said in an interview. “I have lost many years with my family in previous jobs, and I have decided this was not fair to me or my family. There are several reasons for my departure but this is the only one I will discuss.”
Matkin thanked the city staff and utility work crews, the commissioners, citizens, and his family for their support.
Even “Citizens who haven’t always been supportive, I want to thank you because you are the motivation that drives us,” he said.
He credits any accomplishments to his staff and crews, he said in an interview. “I was just the person that helped with the decisions, they are the ones that made them happen. Every accomplishment I can write down was done by the City of Fort Scott Team and not the City Manager.”
Here are the staff accomplishments:
- Building the staff that the city currently has.
- Establishing the “My Fort Scott” app.
- Finishing Cooper Street.
- Finishing “Old Faithful” project.
- Improving wages for City staff members.
- Improving wages for City Public Safety members
- Gunn Park camping area improvements.
- Lake Fort Scott stem repair.
- 2022 Cape Seal program completion and 2023 Cape Seal program preparation work.
- Increasing advertisements and promotions of area events by the tourism department.
- Approvement of 2025 CCLIP grant for 2nd phase of Wall Street
- Pothole and Crack sealing program.
- Establishing a brick crew, and a street repair team.
- Memorial Hall improvements.
- Additional Lake Fort Scott fishing docks.
- Buck Run Community Center improvements.
- Wastewater Treatment Plant improvements and elimination of “the smell”.
- Assignment of Baker Tilly as City’s Finance Director.
- Flawless 2022 City audit.
- $1.7 million CDBG sewer repair grant ($1.1 million was the city’s responsibility).
- Airport runway and taxi-way improvements.
- Stormwater project on 17th and Eddy.
- Purchased street line painter, painting the city streets with city crews.
- Several street and water line repairs.
- Bringing back the Community Development position.
- Establishing a budget that did not increase taxes and opened up some additional monies.
Fort Scott has a future, he said. “If it’s allowed, but it’s going to take positivity. That was my goal to spread positivity and get rid of negativity. I feel like I have done that, for the most part.”
“It’s my hometown,” he said on the Facebook announcement of his resignation. “I’ve lived here 53 years….there is no place better.”
He will help the commission find a replacement for the position, he said. “To get everything ready for basically what I would have done into the next two years,” he said in making the resignation announcement at the Community Connections Panel at noon yesterday.
When Matkin told the panel he was resigning, at the end of his presentation of highlights at the city, the moderator, Fort Scott Chamber of Commerce President Bailey Lyons thanked Matkin for his service to the city of Fort Scott, and asked if there is a new search started for city manager.
“I haven’t talked to the commission, personally,” he said. “If I had a recommendation, I would make it a national search or a least broaden the search out a little further. It will take a little while to find one.”
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