Manager starting up her 2nd city

Few people have started a city from scratch. Liane Stillman is working on her second.

Stillman, who guided Holladay to incorporation in 1999 as mayor, will now lead Salt Lake County's newest city of Cottonwood Heights as its city manager.

The Cottonwood Heights council-elect chose Stillman this week to lead the council-manager government of the soon-to-be city, casting her in a role similar to her mayoral position in Holladay. As one of the few full-time positions in the city, Stillman will oversee day-to-day operations in the city of 35,000.

Stillman now has less than a month to staff an entire city with a Jan. 3 incorporation date nearing. The new city manager will have to do that work without an office or a paycheck until the city gets under way next month.

"It is truly eating an elephant — you don't even know where to take your first bite," she said.

Fortunately, Stillman has her experience in Holladay to guide her through many of the same issues of contracting city services, setting budgets and finding a city hall.

One of the biggest obstacles for the infant city is establishing revenue sources, which will be lagging in the first few months. Sales tax dollars may not surface until March, and property tax revenues will not reach city coffers until July.

"It's a lean picture right at the moment. The start-up costs all come at once," she said. "You need a city office, but you also just need a chair and a pencil."

Mayor-elect Kelvyn Cullimore Jr. said he hopes Salt Lake County will help the city with funding in the early months.

"You can't have employees if you can't pay them, and you can't pay them without a budget," Cullimore said. "It's a chicken and the egg sort of thing."

But Stillman is confident her Holladay experience will help get the city off on the right track. In particular, Stillman said she learned from mistakes in Holladay that she can't tackle individual citizen problems before establishing proper city procedure.

"We need to be very patient and make sure our policies are in place before we go out and fix problems," she said. "I certainly made my share of mistakes, but that's just going to be beneficial to Cottonwood Heights. I know where the pitfalls are."