Spinner: Being mayor best job I’ll ever have

When the Spinners were considering Denny’s bid for a third term as mayor of Huntingburg, it wasn’t an easy decision.

A self-declared foot on the gas leader, Spinner was looking at the completion of the Stellar Community projects and wondering if it was time for some new leadership for the city.

“There was a lot of discussion of should we continue and why and how, and if we don’t, what would we do,” he explained. “All those things were really on the table when we were thinking about a third term.”

In an off-handed comment about what he would do if he wasn’t mayor, Denny told his wife, Shari, he wouldn’t mind working for the Office of Community and Rural Affairs (OCRA). He had become familiar with the state office that oversees the Stellar Community program in the previous five years.

“It was just a comment like, ‘well, if that job ever came open,'” he said.

He decided to run for the third term and did so unopposed. He was sworn into office this past January. Over the year, the Stellar projects were finished — a bright spot in 2020 — with the mayor celebrating the last project being completed on the six-year anniversary of the day Huntingburg was announced as a Stellar Community back in August of 2014.

Also during that time, Jodi Golden, the director of OCRA, was named as the Chief of Agency Operations in Lt. Governor Suzanne Crouch’s administration. Matt Crouch was named as the interim director until a replacement was found.

Then, in early September, Spinner was on his way out of city hall at the end of the day when he got a text from Golden to give her a call. He had worked extensively with her as the city processed through the Stellar Community program.

When he got home that day, he stepped back into his office to make the call. A few moments later, he came out and Shari met him with a simple question, “did you get offered a job?”.

He had been asked if he would be interested in directing OCRA. “I was definitely interested,” he explained, “but there was a process to making the decision.”

They were both taken aback by the moment, but there is a chasm between saying you’re interested in a job and then actually leaving the job you have loved for so long.

And Spinner really loved being mayor of Huntingburg.

“My dad delivered my mail and my son would stand on the porch waiting for papaw to come by.” Denny Spinner

He had a love for his hometown in 2011 when he was asked to run for mayor. It was a love carried over by his father, Harold Spinner, a mailman who would walk his route on Huntingburg’s southside.

“There was just a sense that he loved being here and he loved the people he saw as he walked his mail route,” Spinner said.

That love for the city propelled him to say yes to running for mayor. Then, while going out door-to-door, he began to see a greater depth in the community that existed in the people he was meeting. “I started meeting people face-to-face and realizing the challenges that were there and how strong the community really is. There are so many good people.”

In a tumultuous election year, he won.

Stellar

After taking office in 2012, he launched an initiative called Revive the Pride and invited the community to give the city input on things they would like to see improved or added to help Huntingburg live up to its motto of being a city like no other.

Those meetings in addition to a downtown revitalization study (funded through a grant from OCRA) and an update to the city’s comprehensive plan clarified a vision for moving forward. They also helped identify members of the community who were willing to come forward with their time to guide and be involved in the process.

With this foundation in place, Spinner and his team realized that “Stellar was the right thing for Huntingburg to achieve the things we had talked about for about a year and a half,” he explained. “And Huntingburg was the right thing for Stellar. We were a community that was ready to grasp that idea and make the program work for us.”

Spinner attributes the success to the team of volunteers that agreed to serve on the Stellar committee back in 2014. That same group of volunteers served until the process was complete this year.

Being part of that process as mayor is one of his proudest accomplishments.

“It was a vision that was created by a team,” he said. “I had the great honor of leading the discussion but I hope that as people look at Huntingburg as a Stellar Community, they see parts of what they said were important.”

He also credits his own success and the offer to lead OCRA to those who helped bring the city to this new era. “I stand firmly on the shoulders of everyone in Huntingburg, a tremendous staff — an amazing staff — and all the volunteers,” he added.

This work through Stellar and his unique perspective as a rural Indiana mayor are aspects he thinks will help him lead the organization he is taking over. The back and forth and frustration through the process of completing Stellar was worth it for the City of Huntingburg, according to Spinner, and he wants to be part of helping other Indiana communities through those same processes.

“Because it is worth it,” he added.

There is no elected office closer to the people than the mayor of a small town.

His love for Huntingburg has only deepened through his time as mayor. When he was first elected, he met with the mayor of Scottsburg, Bill Graham. “Huntingburg and Scottsburg are very similar,” he said. “It was a good parallel to what I would be experiencing as mayor.”

After talking in Graham’s office for a bit, the two walked down to the square to grab a bite to eat. As they walked, Graham was inundated with friendly greetings, “hi, mayor”, “hey, Bill”, “how you doing, mayor?”

“I really took that to heart,” Spinner said.

He said he hoped to become an approachable mayor.

“That really clicked in my mind that I have to work on this,” he added.

It’s a double-edged sword though. He soon realized that you are never not the mayor. It doesn’t matter if you are at Mor-for-Less, going to a Southridge Raider game, or sitting in church. “You are always the mayor and it’s a great honor,” Spinner said. “But it is also different.”

Besides this constant recognition, he loved getting to know people and becoming a greater part of the community over the years as mayor, but there were hard moments as well.

“In that same relationship with the people, sometimes you can’t give them the answer that they (and you) want,” he said. “You have to make decisions that many people don’t see as the correct thing.”

For example, he pointed out that as a citizen of Huntingburg, he doesn’t want to pay more for utilities because of an expansion of the water treatment facility or the wastewater plant or the future maintenance and expansion of the electrical system. As mayor though, those increases and projects are necessary for the continued growth and vitality of the city.

“And for the men and women who served on the council and made those votes, it was never an easy thing,” Spinner said. “But they were bold enough to do what they felt was right for the city.”

There are decisions like that in every administration he explained commending the decisions made by Gail Kemp’s administration that gave Huntingburg a solid financial foundation to accomplish Stellar as well as other large-scale projects in his administration.

I firmly believe that at the end of my career, wherever that may be, I will look back at this and say the best job I’ve ever had was mayor of Huntingburg.” Denny Spinner

Moving on

“I wondered if it was time for new leadership for Huntingburg,” Spinner admitted as he considered taking the position with OCRA.

He reached out to some of his peers to help him work through the decision to leave. Joe McGuinness, the commissioner of the Indiana Department of Transportation, was one of those people. Before taking over INDOT, McGuiness had been the mayor of Franklin. He had reached out to Spinner to work through the decision to lead INDOT back when he was offered the job and now it was McGuinness’s turn to return the favor for Spinner.

Spinner asked him what he missed about being mayor. “He told me that I will miss it. You put your heart and soul into it and you will miss it,” he said.

McGuinness also told him that leadership is going to change and you just have to know you left the city in a better place than when you started.

“I believe Huntingburg is a stronger community now and Mr. Schwinghamer will do a great job,” Spinner said. “He’s got a passion for Huntingburg and an opportunity to make Huntingburg even stronger.”

Steve Schwinghamer will be sworn into office Wednesday morning at 8:30 a.m. He and Spinner met for five hours last Saturday but Schwinghamer will go through the same learning process Spinner did and there are plenty of people willing to help him.

“There’s no job that prepares you to be the mayor,” Spinner said. “But for those who want to serve, this is a tremendous opportunity and responsibility.”

Spinner appreciates memorializing events and moments in life. He could have resigned at any time but he chose Tuesday (today) as his final day for a reason. There is a common council meeting this evening.

The moment isn’t exactly perfect. Rather than conducting the meeting in the council chambers while sitting between the five council members, the clerk/treasurer, and the city attorney as he has countless times in his years in office, this meeting will be held virtually.

“But the last thing I want to do as the mayor of Huntingburg is to conduct the business of the City of Huntingburg one more time,” he said.