Flynn seeks magistrate seat after decades of service

Michael Flynn has served Winchester for more than three decades as a city employ­ee and admin­is­tra­tor, and now he wants to help lead the coun­ty gov­ern­ment as an elect­ed official.

Flynn, cur­rent­ly the inter­im city man­ag­er, is chal­leng­ing incum­bent 5^th District Fiscal Court Magistrate Chris Davis in the May Republican primary.

“I think it’s time for me to move into anoth­er are­na and to be able to uti­lize the skills that I have in order to bring some fresh ideas to the table,” Flynn said.

There had been spec­u­la­tion over whether Flynn might with­draw from the race fol­low­ing City Manager Bruce Manley’s res­ig­na­tion ear­ly this year. Flynn was asked to step back into his old role as city man­ag­er until the com­mis­sion could hire a replacement.

“I made a com­mit­ment when I put my name in the race to run,” and he wants to hon­or it, he said.

Flynn agreed to serve as city man­ag­er while run­ning for mag­is­trate because he want­ed to con­tin­ue the work he had begun as city man­ag­er in the five years before Manley.

“Everything ris­es and falls on lead­er­ship,” and hav­ing no leader in the city manager’s posi­tion would have been dis­rup­tive, he said. “Somebody needs to be there.”

Flynn said he thinks it would ben­e­fit the coun­ty to have some­one with a back­ground in city gov­ern­ment serve it, because coöper­a­tion between the two gov­ern­ments is more impor­tant now that the cost of pro­vid­ing pub­lic ser­vices is rising.

“I think there are a lot of ser­vices that are dupli­cat­ed,” he said. “The word nobody likes is merged gov­ern­ment, and I’m not propos­ing that. That’s not my stance. But what I am propos­ing is that there are oppor­tu­ni­ties for the city and the coun­ty to work togeth­er col­lec­tive­ly in order to pro­vide qual­i­ty ser­vices to our cit­i­zens, where­by the costs of those ser­vices can be borne by both enti­ties in a man­ner that is palat­able for both.”

Flynn said he knows the inner work­ings of the city, and it would take him a short time to grasp the county’s. But with his back­ground in util­i­ties, indus­tri­al devel­op­ment, and pub­lic admin­is­tra­tion, he believes he is well-qualified.

“I don’t believe the magistrate’s job is a part-time job,” he said, explain­ing that any pub­lic office, if done right, means putting in more hours than required.

Flynn, 54, grew up in Clark County, and four gen­er­a­tions of his fam­i­ly live here. He and his wife, Kimberly, have a son, Andrew, who is a Winchester police offi­cer, and two grandchildren.

He has been a mem­ber of Landmark Baptist Church for 36 years.

Flynn grad­u­at­ed from George Rogers Clark High School in 1989, then earned an associate’s degree in elec­tri­cal engi­neer­ing at DeVry University in Columbus, Ohio, and an associate’s in the­ol­o­gy from Southern Indiana Baptist College.

When he returned home, he worked for UPS and a tool-and-die busi­ness for a cou­ple of years before join­ing Winchester Municipal Utilities as part of the work crew in water ser­vice, waste­water, and sol­id waste. He then went into engi­neer­ing and worked his way up to gen­er­al manager.

After a decade as WMU’s top exec­u­tive, Flynn served as city man­ag­er from 2020 to 2024. He helped out as a con­sul­tant dur­ing Manley’s time in office before return­ing as inter­im man­ag­er this year.

“My record speaks for itself,” Flynn said.

He said he could list “hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars” of projects he has been involved in, includ­ing the Strodes Creek and Lower Howard’s Creek waste­water treat­ment plants, the Lower Howard’s Creek water treat­ment plant, the Town Branch storm sew­er, and many oth­er projects.

Just as impor­tant as the big projects, he said, are the neigh­bor­hood projects, because peo­ple need to know some­one is respond­ing to their issues.

“These jobs are not easy jobs,” he remarked. “You have to be a prob­lem solver.”

Flynn cred­it­ed those he has worked with for the city’s successes.

“It’s nev­er been about me, it’s about the peo­ple that I’ve put around me,” he said. “They knew that I cared about them.”

“I think that’s the truest form of ser­vant lead­er­ship: when you know that they’ll do what you’re ask­ing them to do, or that you’ve done it before your­self. You have a deep respect for that.”

Flynn said he respects his oppo­nent and has “no issues” with him.

Both he and Davis placed great empha­sis on con­tin­u­ing indus­tri­al devel­op­ment, includ­ing pur­chas­ing more land to expand the Winchester Industrial Park.

“We need to be recruit­ing indus­try, and we need to be tak­ing care of the exist­ing indus­try … and mak­ing sure they stay in our com­mu­ni­ty,” Flynn said.

It’s also impor­tant, he said, to recruit retail busi­ness­es. As an exam­ple of suc­cess, he point­ed to the Winchester Plaza, which will be full when Aldi moves into the for­mer Bargain Hunt space in June, and Cricket relo­cates there.

A small­er, down­town devel­op­ment he men­tioned as anoth­er exam­ple is the McEldowney Building, which is near­ly at capacity.

The two can­di­dates have dif­fer­ent emphases regard­ing res­i­den­tial and com­mer­cial devel­op­ment. Davis wants more devel­op­ment along the U.S. 60 cor­ri­dor, as the road is slat­ed for widen­ing. Flynn believes that will hap­pen in time, but in the short term, he wants to devel­op Veterans Memorial Parkway.

“That’s where I think we need to focus our atten­tion for the moment,” he said.

Flynn said the state leg­is­la­ture has approved $9 mil­lion in this bien­ni­um to buy the rest of the right of way for the bypass exten­sion to Ky. 627, where a hous­ing devel­op­ment of more than 400 units is underway.

Flynn said he wants to pre­serve Clark County’s rur­al and agri­cul­tur­al char­ac­ter and Winchester’s small-town atmos­phere while con­tin­u­ing to grow.

He said he doesn’t want Winchester to become like Nicholasville, where it’s hard to see where that city ends and Lexington begins.

Asked what he sees as the biggest chal­lenge fac­ing Clark County’s gov­ern­ment in the next four years, Flynn said: “Just devel­op­ing some con­ti­nu­ity on the Fiscal Court among its mem­bers and with the judge — and with the city gov­ern­ment as well — to move the com­mu­ni­ty forward.”

Also, the coun­ty should con­duct a finan­cial needs assess­ment to review expens­es and rev­enues and deter­mine how it might meet its goals, he said.

“We’ve got to get peo­ple involved. It takes more than the sev­en peo­ple who are on the court to do that,” he said.

Asked what he sees as the great­est oppor­tu­ni­ty, Flynn said it is Winchester and Clark County’s peo­ple, who have “the best inter­ests of the com­mu­ni­ty in mind.”

“That gives me hope,” he said.

Whoever wins the Republican pri­ma­ry for the dis­trict will like­ly be the next mag­is­trate, as no Democrat has filed.