To pacify Crystal River, an ex-officer

The newest city manager recently led an FAA office in putting up barricades and has served as a Metro-Dade police officer and air marshal.

By ALEX LEARY

© St. Petersburg Times,
published October 1, 2001

CRYSTAL RIVER -- The stars had not yet faded as they drove out of town, and Carol Lilly remarked how pretty the sky was before nodding off, her husband at the wheel.

In a flash, the serenity was shattered. "I just barely caught him out of the corner of my eye," Phil Lilly recounted. "I didn't even have time to grip the steering wheel."

At the intersection of County Road 326 and State Road 121 in Levy County, another driver in a Taurus, Lowell Dickman, ran a stop sign and his car sideswiped Lilly's Taurus.

The car rolled three times. Phil Lilly emerged with three broken ribs and internal bruises. He would not work for three months. Carol Lilly's back was fractured, her collarbone broken.

The accident occurred one year ago last Friday, and Lilly says it explains a lot about his decision to end a seemingly successful career with the Federal Aviation Administration to become city manager of Crystal River, a job he begins today.

"We lay in the hospital for days and then went home and had a lot of time to reflect on what is important in life. We decided we really need to be with each other."

Though Lilly, 52, took a $21,000 pay cut -- he will earn $65,000 -- he will no longer have to commute to work on the East Coast, giving him more time with his wife and church.

"I think he wants some stability," said Dan Wilson, a friend and former chief of police in Orlando. "It speaks to his values; how family, community and friends are more important to him than money or job prestige."

The selection of Lilly caused some controversy. Much of it has to do with his lack of city manager experience. A few days before interviewing finalists, the City Council said it would not necessarily stick to the job advertisement, which called for candidates with "progressive management experience as an assistant or city manager."

In response, Lilly said that he oversaw employees and developed budgets while working police jobs in Miami and South Carolina. His law enforcement credentials failed to make him a contender for a chief of police vacancy in Crystal River in 1999, a job that went to Jim Farley.

Though supporters of former Manager David Sallee, a man loathed by the council but revered by many residents, express support of the new manager, they say they will be watching carefully.

"We need to give this guy a chance," said Bud Kramer, leader of a group of residents who are working to unseat the council members who fired Sallee. "I'm hoping his learning curve is short and his decisions benefit all residents and not a select few."

Managing this city of 3,400 has been a formidable task, if only for political reasons. The council is prone to infighting and there are political factions in town that love to hate each other.

Lilly, the eighth manager since 1990, thinks he can stop the hemorrhaging. "As much as I see risk, I also see a great opportunity to turn things completely around," he said from First Baptist Church on Citrus Avenue, where he is a part-time minister and plays drums with the church band on Sundays.

"I hold everything in the sovereignty of God," said Lilly, who last year earned a master's degree from Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis. "I have a great amount of faith that he's going to care for me."

An Eagle Scout and an officer

Lilly has an affable, almost squeaky clean, demeanor. While leading a reporter to a room in the church, he excused himself and walked over to a woman and gave her a hug.

He has a manicured beard that is light brown but flecked with gray around his mouth and chin. He is mostly bald and the hair on the sides of his head fans back in a ponytail. During the interview, he wore an aqua polo shirt, Duck Head khakis and brown shoes.

Outside church, he wears sneakers and, sometimes, a baseball hat. He has a slight build from working out a few times a week. A former power lifter, he once could bench press 335 pounds.

The garage of his home on SE Fourth Street is filled with about a thousand 45 rpm records, mostly 1960s and early '70s singles from bands such as the Temptations, Sam and Dave and the Four Tops. Next to the vinyl sits a 1964 Corvair Spyder, a hunter green hot rod Lilly bought three years ago, after a lifetime of interest.

Philip Gregory Lilly was born in Wilkinsburg, Pa. on May 8, 1949. The son of a high school metal shop teacher, he could wire an electrical outlet by age 5. Later, when his father went into construction, Lilly would tag along to work sites, sitting on bulldozers. As he got older, the fascination grew into a summer job. He was an Eagle Scout and played drums in an R&B band.

"It was a Leave It to Beaver atmosphere," said Lilly's older brother, Gary, a cross country coach and chairman of the political science and sociology department of Westminster College in Pennsylvania. "We had a painfully normal childhood."

At Penn Hills High School, Phil Lilly was a member of the German Club, a pole vaulter and a standout gymnast. During football games, he dressed as the school's mascot, an Indian.

A picture in the 1967 yearbook shows him hanging off a goal post with "squaw" Cindy Kvamme. When the team scored a touchdown, Lilly performed back handsprings.

The tumbling talent earned the skinny 6-foot-1 Lilly a scholarship to the University of Pittsburgh, where he studied to become a health and physical education teacher.

After graduating in 1971, Lilly took a job with the university police, patrolling the campus from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. "I liked teaching, but I kind of gravitated to the public service aspect."

And so, a cop was born.

From Miami beat to air security

Lilly spent two years in Pittsburgh and then moved to Miami to work as a patrol officer for the Metro-Dade Police Department. He held various positions there, including auto theft detective.

On May 21, 1974, while working in north Miami, Lilly got a call about a neighbor dispute involving a man with a gun. When he arrived, he caught a glimpse of an officer falling to the ground. "I drove up in the yard toward the guy, and he shot at me, and I ducked behind the dashboard."

Reaching for his shotgun, Lilly chased after the man, who made the mistake of stepping out of hiding. "I got him in the upper torso," Lilly recalled. The assailant lived but Officer Simmons Arrington died. "For a young kid, it's one of those things that you never forget."

While he worked the beat, Lilly studied at Florida International University, earning a master's in management in 1975. His degree fortified with big city experience, he planned to move to a smaller area and become a police chief.

Instead he got his first exposure to municipal government, taking a job as a planner in Jacksonville. He helped obtain law enforcement grants, but when the grant that was paying his salary ran out, he left for Greenville, S.C.

There, Lilly got a job with the sheriff's office, working as an internal affairs investigator, criminal investigator and an administrative assistant to the sheriff. He said the last position exposed him to municipal budgeting.

After jobs with the South Carolina Police Service Bureau and as a deputy marshal for the Federal District Court, Lilly began a career with the Federal Aviation Administration in 1985, working primarily in antiterrorism and airport security.

The FAA said it does not release performance evaluations.

By the late 1980s, he had traveled to 46 countries, including Haiti, where he said he helped draft airport security laws and trained airport police.

Duane McGray, former police commander at Orlando International Airport, met Lilly in 1992. Lilly's job was to oversee security at the airport and report any lapses.

"Rather than fine us, he would work to solve the problem," McGray said. "It was more like team building. He's a very common-sense person."

The men developed a personal friendship; and when McGray married in 1997, he asked Lilly to be his best man. "I don't think you'll find anyone more honest, any more dedicated," McGray said from Nashville, Tenn., where he is director of public safety at the airport.

Coast-to-coast commute

Lilly met his wife in 1986 while living in Atlanta. At the time, he was a federal air marshal and frequently traveled to the Middle East. To blend in, he grew a beard. The ponytail, he joked, emerged because he did not want anyone with sharp objects near his head. Carol Lilly, 58, is director of the Crystal River Rotary and works part time at an antique shop on U.S. 19.

Though they have lived here for only three years, the Lillys have owned property for more than a decade. They often drove the west coast of Florida and fell in love with Crystal River. "It was kind of out of the hustle bustle but close enough to it," he said.

While in Orlando in 1998, they decided to drive over and check on their property. As Lilly explains it, they began talking with a neighbor and soon were talking about building. They sold some of their land and used the profit as a down payment on a new house.

So later that year, Lilly quit his job with the FAA in St. Louis and moved to Crystal River. He considered teaching science or geography at the high school level, but the salary made him wince. So he took a job with the FAA's Center for Management Development in Palm Coast. He would make the 126-mile commute on Tuesday morning and stay there until the weekend.

Lilly, who directed the distance learning program, kept working until last Friday, taking no time off between jobs. His coworkers threw him a farewell party that afternoon.

"We are sorry to see him go," said Peri Dixon, coordinator for student services. "He never really made a great show about how much work he had to do. He accomplished a lot without a great deal of fanfare."

One of his brightest moments, she said, came in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorism attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

With the office manager away, Lilly took over, instructing his staff to barricade the front entrance.

He instituted tougher identification standards and trained mail room workers how to look for bombs. Mostly, he brought order. "He was a great calming factor and a great leader," Dixon said.

The question now is, can he do the same for Crystal River?

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