BLOOMINGTON - During his tenure as Bloomington city manager, Tom Hamilton has worked with three mayors.

Hamilton was hired in 1993 in the middle of former Mayor Jesse Smart's three terms. He also served during former Mayor Judy Markowitz's two terms, 1997 to 2005, and with current Mayor Steve Stockton's first term.

Smart

"He and I had a great working relationship. Our first project probably was bringing Jumer's here and there was so many annexations on the east and west side of Bloomington that we oversaw.

"Tom never had any problems with any of the councils he worked for except the last two years. I think they blamed him for the Coliseum and they took their revenge out on him for it because there was no one left to blame."

Stockton

"Tom has helped me understand a lot of history and why we do certain things in a certain way. He helped me make a transition from the way things are done in business to the way things are done in government, which there are real differences between the two.

"He helped us shift the city's priorities to that back-to-basics approach we were trying to get back to after all the big projects were completed. By and large, the city has good services and Tom, who as city manager and runs the day-to-day operations for the city, is responsible for that."