Charlie Harball has a vivid memory of being 18 years old and shaking hands with Mike Mansfield, the esteemed former U.S. senator from Montana.
“Hi Charlie,” Mansfield said, reciting the name of the young man he had met several years earlier.
Harball was awestruck.
“It was really important to me that he had remembered my name,” he said in a recent interview in his office at Kalispell City Hall.
Growing up, politics were prevalent in Harball’s household. His father, Charles, was a World War II veteran who served as a state legislator. Mansfield and Lee Metcalf, another distinguished U.S. senator from Montana, were colleagues of Harball Sr. and role models for young Charlie.
These surroundings drew Harball to where he is today, shuffling duties as city attorney and acting city manager – essentially the top two roles in Kalispell’s local government.
Harball, the city’s lead legal counsel since 2001, agreed to work dual jobs and fill the interim city manager position early last month. The position became vacant after the city’s top choice, David L. Nielsen, resigned the day he was going to be introduced because of a misunderstanding over the state pension plan. Jane Howington had vacated the full-time position after taking the same job in Newport, R.I.
Harball laughs when asked why he would ever want to take on the burden of working both positions at once.
“I didn’t want to take this on,” he said. “It’s not an ideal situation. The best situation is you have somebody in there that can focus full time on it.”
But the vacancy came at a problematic time for the city. The city council is currently in the process of tackling several urgent matters, including the future of both the West Side Tax Increment Finance District and the municipal airport and the possible elimination of transportation impact fees. Without a city manager, who implements and informs decisions made by the mayor and council, the processes could be stalled to a certain degree until a full-time hire is made.
Once Nielsen withdrew his name, Harball soon surfaced as the most qualified candidate for the position. But it was less than ideal both professionally and personally. He remembers the conversation he had with his wife, Claire, the night he found out about Nielsen’s resignation.
“We talked about it,” he said, “and agreed some things you just don’t want to dodge.”
With the support of his wife, Harball agreed to take the job and stepped in as acting city manager on Jan. 9. The council officially approved his interim status at a meeting on Jan. 23. The hiring process for a full-time manager has already begun and Mayor Tammi Fisher has said she hopes a candidate is picked by May. More than 40 people have applied.
Several city councilors and Fisher have expressed support of Harball in the past. Howington worked closely with him during her tenure as city manager and has faith in him filling her shoes.
“He’s very knowledgeable about the city and the laws of Montana and he absolutely has the best interests of the city at heart,” Howington wrote in an email to the Beacon recently. “Charlie has a great ability to provide a calm and caring environment: an important element when working in either a legal or political arena.”
Harball’s office reflects the volume of his daily responsibilities. Mountains of paperwork cover his desk. The number of phone calls, from residents and staff, has increased. But he downplays the difficulty of his current juggling act.
“Every day is a little bit of a triage,” he said. “You get to the things that are on fire and you take care of those things. But there’s always going to be somebody you didn’t get back to. Most people are pretty understanding, but not always.”
“It’s not miserable,” he added. “I enjoy it. I probably enjoy it because I know I’m not doing it forever.”
Harball graduated from Polson High School in 1974. Growing up, he watched as his father campaigned with the likes of Metcalf and Mansfield. He has kept a picture of himself as a 4-year-old wearing a cowboy hat with a Metcalf campaign button attached. It’s a fond memory of how he became introduced to local government, but it’s also a reminder of the corrosive nature of politics.
“I was interested in government but I was very de-motivated for any involvement in politics,” he said. “It’s hard on a family. I would never even think of running for an office. It’s a fickle world.”
After high school, Harball spent five years serving in the military as a corpsman in the U.S. Navy. He graduated from law school at the University of Washington and settled outside of Seattle with Claire, also a Polson native. Harball worked as an attorney for six years before moving to Kalispell in 1991 to be closer to family. After working in private practice for 10 years, he had the opportunity to work in local government when the city attorney at the time asked him to join the staff as an assistant.
“People thought I was nuts to come on board,” he said. “I had a perfectly happy successful private practice. There was a lot of turmoil going on in the city at the time.”
Within a few months, the city attorney was fired and, like the interim city manager situation 10 years later, Harball became the heir apparent.
As Harball describes it, the situation today is far brighter, even if the workload is much heavier. He is trying to carry on Howington’s example of passing on valid information and ideas to city councilors to help them make decisions. He credits his colleagues for making it possible to work both jobs, saying, “I couldn’t do it without a strong staff.”
Even if his desk is overwhelmed with paperwork, he isn’t.
“I’m a strong believer in the process,” he said. “I love local government. It doesn’t get any better than local government.”