What Wilmot Collins learned as mayor

Helena residents wanted assurances that the city’s police department would not participate in detaining immigrants. They were angry that law enforcement from Helena and Lewis and Clark County had assisted federal immigration officers in taking  Christopher Martinez Marvan, a Mexican citizen who had been living with his family in Helena since 2008, into custody. 

During a city meeting one week after the July 1 detention, members of the public and advocates for immigration reform shared their grievances. The crowd wasn’t just mad that federal officers were in their city. They were mad at Collins. 

Given that Collins had fled his home country of Liberia in the 1990s before becoming Helena’s first Black mayor, some made it clear that they expected more.

“I think your position was weak considering your status as an immigrant and as a man of color,” one resident said. “It’s your duty to do more to protect your citizens.”

The criticism stung.

“It bothers me to the core that people would think that me, as a former refugee and as an immigrant, would approve of anything other than the right thing, the honorable thing to do, the humanitarian thing to do,” Collins said in a recent interview with Montana Free Press. 

But he felt rather powerless, he said. The government of Helena lacks the authority to alter the actions of the federal government, and he, alone, could not enact immediate policy change for local law enforcement.

“So when people say, ‘You as a refugee and immigrant, you want the federal government to come here?’ That’s not what I want, but what can I do?” Collins continued. “We can’t do much.”

That frustration, Collins said, was a feeling he had encountered often during his eight years as Helena’s mayor, a position that lacks the decision-making abilities of mayoral posts in many other cities. It’s also one of the reasons, he told MTFP, that he decided not to seek a third term this fall. 

When he took office in 2017, Collins said he envisioned making quick, meaningful changes on issues such as homelessness and affordable housing in Helena. He would learn just how difficult getting those policy changes through would be.

On Dec. 29, Collins will step away from government work and turn the mayoral post over to current Commissioner Emily Dean, the candidate whom he endorsed. Over the past two months, MTFP interviewed Collins repeatedly to find out more about why he was leaving city government and what he learned from holding one of the most high-profile — yet weak — mayoral posts in Montana. 

“ A lot of people blame the mayor for a lot of things. The mayor has one vote, like the commission.  So there are lots of things the mayor can’t do,” Collins said.  

A LONG WAY FROM LIBERIA

It was a cool day in February of 1994 when 31-year-old Collins first landed at the Helena Regional Airport. After fleeing his home country of Liberia, torn by a civil war, Collins initially migrated east to Ghana before eventually seeking permanent refugee status in the United States.

He planned to join his wife, Maddie, who had immigrated to Helena from Liberia two years earlier after spending time in the city as a high school exchange student.

Before Maddie left for the U.S., the couple had learned that she was pregnant. So, when Collins finally landed in Helena, he was greeted by his wife — and, for the first time ever — his toddler daughter, Jaymie.    

“I saw my wife in the corner holding the baby, and she put the baby down and said, ‘There’s daddy. Go to daddy,’” Collins remembered. “That’s the most emotional part about my whole journey. When she came straight to me and just hugged me, and I fell to the floor, just screaming.” 

The transition from being a Black immigrant to feeling safe in Montana did not come easily. But sometimes good follows bad. For example, one morning, not long after arriving in Helena, Collins recalled receiving a knock on his door from a neighbor who alerted him that vandals had spray-painted “KKK” on his garage door. 

Collins reported the graffiti to local police, but by the time he returned home, his neighbors had washed the paint from the garage. 

“ This lady had galvanized the neighborhood; she had gotten the neighborhood together, and they had washed my wall down,” Collins said. “What that told me was, I belong. They were telling me, ‘We will not tolerate this.’”

RUNNING, WINNING AND MAKING HISTORY

When his son Bliss, who was then attending the University of Montana, called one day in 2017 and suggested that his father get into politics, Collins was intrigued. He understood, personally, the impact politicians could have. Several politicians, including U.S. Sens. Max Baucus and Conrad Burns and U.S. Rep. Pat Williams, had written letters of support for his own refugee status. 

His professional journey had also intersected with government. He had served for 20 years in the military. (He worked in human resources and in the Office of Casualty Affairs in the Army and served as a logistics specialist for the Navy.) 

Still, at first, he said, he didn’t take his son’s suggestion seriously. He didn’t know how to run a campaign, raise money and wasn’t like “those people” in politics. But Bliss wouldn’t let it go.

“He said, ‘Dad, who do you consider ‘those people?’ You are part of those people now.  You’re an American, you’re retiring military, you’ve done everything right.”

So, his family did what they had always done when it came to big decisions: They took a vote.

“ Every time we voted, the two guys would vote together and the two girls, and so everything we voted on always failed,” he said.

But not this time. The vote was 3-1, with only his wife casting the dissenting vote, that Collins would run for mayor of his adopted city. 

He wasn’t optimistic about his chances. The incumbent Jim Smith had served for about 17 years, and Collins didn’t know where to begin building a campaign. 

So he knocked on lots of doors, asking what Helenans wanted to see in a new leader. He then campaigned on what he took to be the priorities of Helena residents: more funding for police and fire protection, addressing homelessness and affordable housing, and improving the city’s street plowing.

As a newcomer to politics, Collins said he was surprised when the donations started coming in. The first financial reports showed that Collins was out-raising his opponent. And when Election Day came, Collins won, receiving 5,139 votes, or 51.28%, while Smith received 4,801, making history as Helena’s first Black mayor.

But it wasn’t until he started receiving congratulations, first a phone call from then-U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, and then a second call from The Huffington Post requesting an interview, that he realized the significance of his achievement. He estimates that he had more than 35 interview requests — some from national media — within nine days.

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE REALITY OF BEING A “WEAK” MAYOR

Despite all the attention, the mayor quickly realized that there were major bounds to his authority.  

In some “strong mayor” cities, such as Missoula, the mayoral position is full-time and includes the ability to hire and supervise staff who, in turn, run city programs. Helena, like Bozeman, is a “weak mayor” city, meaning the position is part-time, paying just $15,000 a year. The full-time city manager functions as the city’s chief executive, making decisions about the budget while seeking direction from the city commission and mayor.  Recent salary estimates for the incoming Helena city manager ranged from $175,000 to $205,000.

Although the mayor contributes to the appointment of the city manager, so do the other four members of the commission. Throughout his next eight years as mayor, Collins continued to work full-time at the state public health and human services department in various capacities. (Collins is currently the compliance and communication specialist for the Aging Services Bureau.)

Many people are fine with this system; in fact, the residents of Helena had their once–a-decade opportunity to revisit the structure of local government in 2024, but voted not to.

There are advantages to this system, according to Terry Cunningham, the outgoing mayor of Bozeman, which has a similar local government structure. Elected officials have the authority to appoint a person with the necessary experience to the crucial manager role. 

He also said that the structure works best when the two local leaders are aligned. “One of the things that is important in our form of government is that the mayor and the city manager have a good relationship and a good understanding of where their roles are,” Cunningham told MTFP.  

Commissioner Melinda Reed, who briefly held the role of interim city manager during Collins’ time as mayor, agreed.

“ I think when you don’t have clear, effective communication and understand the roles, I think it can lead to frustration,” Reed told MTFP. “If people don’t know how to get something moved forward, if they don’t know how to get an item up for discussion, they can feel frustrated or disempowered.”

Since Collins became mayor, he has seen multiple city managers rotate through that spot. Tim Burton held the title the longest, serving as an interim in 2022 until last week when the commission voted to appoint Alana Lake.

Kevin Hamm, the president of Montana Pride, a state-wide organization aimed at facilitating programs for the LGBTQ+ community, blamed the weak mayor structure for Collins’ inability to get more done. He said that the structure of the position makes something seemingly straightforward — like granting open-container permits for Pride events downtown — an excruciatingly slow process. Hamm said that he first approached the commission about this topic in 2018, but a policy wasn’t codified until 2021. 

“I don’t think we should have a strong manager and a weak mayor because that puts the onus on somebody who isn’t elected,” Hamm told MTFP. “It’s a whole big mess. I hate it. I think it’s the least effective way to run a city, and the bigger the city gets, the more it becomes ineffective.”

He said he thought the mayor did the best he could with a difficult structure. “Wilmot was really good about focusing on the things that he thought were important. He got them done,” Hamm said.

Heather O’Loughlin, a former city commissioner who was elected alongside Collins in 2017, also praised Collins, especially his follow-through in changing how city streets were plowed. She agreed, though, that the structure of the mayor’s role in Helena limits the effectiveness of the position.

“ One of the challenges with the structure, it requires a lot of persistence,” O’Loughlin told MTFP.  

Collins said he believes that he accomplished much of what he had campaigned on. He cited snow plowing and additional funding for emergency services as wins in his first term, alongside passing a bond for a third fire station and expanding affordable housing options in his second. He acknowledges, though, that some of his priorities remain unresolved, particularly those related to homelessness.  

Helena’s homeless population over the years has steadily grown, with its highest population count reported in 2024 at 181, according to a survey conducted by local nonprofit United Way of the Lewis and Clark Area. (This year, that number decreased to 140.)

“ I wish I would’ve approached homelessness differently,” Collins said. “ We dropped the ball; we didn’t do anything. And I’m part to be blamed for that too.”

Though he said he didn’t expect to “solve” affordable housing, he also wished he’d been able to make more of a dent there as well. Part of the challenge, he said, is that there is no “magic bullet” for complex issues such as housing. He also learned that Helena is not a “rich city.” 

“ What people don’t realize is that we can’t just spend money that we don’t have,” Collins said.

Despite being a Black politician in an overwhelmingly white state, Collins doesn’t think that race played too much of a role in his daily experience as mayor. “ It hasn’t affected it for the negative or the positive. I’m just happy the people of Helena just saw me as the mayor,” said Collins, who occasionally used his position to talk about racism in schools. 

A THWARTED SENATE BID

In 2019, two years into his mayoral post, Collins entered the U.S. Senate race against Republican Steve Daines. He said he decided to run after waiting for months for a Democrat to declare their candidacy for the seat. 

“ I said, ‘There are lots of able, competent people who will step up,’” Collins said. “ And so then one month passed, two months passed, three months past, nobody was stepping up. It started getting cumbersome to me because I started thinking about it. I said, ‘If nobody’s stepping up, we can’t just let the election go on unopposed.’”

Soon after, he found himself in the first true controversy of his term. Collins struck a car in front of him while approaching a stoplight. Both drivers pulled over, and Collins said he gave the other driver his business card and offered to pay for the damages. 

Collins maintains that the other driver left the parking lot before he did. But, according to an article in the Helena Independent, the driver claimed that Collins fled when she told him that she had called the police. A jury later sided with Collins on this point, finding him not guilty of leaving the scene of an accident.  

“ Believe it or not, it bothers me today for people to think that I will do something like that, you know?” Collins told MTFP. “That’s not me, that’s not my character.”

The next year, in March of 2020, then-Gov. Steve Bullock announced that he would run for the U.S. Senate seat. Collins then withdrew his name from the race and directed his support to Bullock. 

The second mayoral election, he said, was easier because he knew what he was doing and because he had earned the trust of Helenans. He defeated his opponent, Sonda Gaub, earning 7,182 votes, or about 68% to her 3,328.

WHAT’S NEXT FOR COLLINS, FOR HELENA?

There are no term limits for the mayor in Helena. But once his grandchild was born, it “sealed the deal” that the second term would be his last, Collins said. He wanted to be able to visit his granddaughter in Seattle, he said, and felt like he would be pulled in too many directions.

“I don’t wanna shortchange anyone,” Collins said.

After making his decision, Collins began advocating for Commissioner Dean as the city’s next mayor. Collins said Dean was the most prepared candidate, having served as mayor pro tempore over the last several years. She understands the complexities of policymaking, balancing budgets and asking questions for clarity and general understanding, he said.

“ I strongly supported Dean because I know she’ll continue what we started,” Collins said.

Dean said she hopes to mirror Collins’ love for the city.

“I feel fortunate to have gained genuine friends in Mayor Collins and his wife, Maddie,” Dean told MTFP. “He has this remarkable ability to be grounded in joy and resilience through any type of circumstance. I will miss the empathy for others he brings to the city, and I’m grateful to have learned from his compassion for our community.”

While the 62-year-old Collins ponders what might come next for him, he noted that his efforts to improve Helena won’t end simply because he is no longer mayor. For instance, he sees himself continuing to work to bring a homeless shelter to the city. 

For now, though, his plan involves continuing his day job and spending more time with his family, specifically with his grandchild Solei in Seattle. His friend Daniel Blake Smith is also developing a book and movie about his life. 

Collins also wouldn’t rule himself out of politics just yet. Despite promising his wife not to speak about politics for the next six months, he said he has an interest in seeking a statewide office.

While the Helena commission is nonpartisan, Collins says that he leans Democrat and that if he were to run in a statewide race again, he would try and run a campaign that best reflects the state’s politically mixed makeup. 

“ The people of Montana are no fools,” Collins said. “They know their leaders; they know the people. It’s not a given because you are red. It’s not a given because you are blue. It’s a given because you’re Montanan and you better work for them, or you better show them that you’re able to work.”