New friends. Old memories.

I’ll be off for a couple of days maybe. I will be attending the Arkansas Municipal League summer conference. That’s always a hoot. I appear on the schedule to speak twice. It’s nice to know there are people who still think you have something worthwhile to say. I hope I think of something between now and then.

It promises to be a little bittersweet for me, this one does. For the first time in over 20 years, my first move won’t be to find my niece, the late Candy Jones. She always represented her firm in the exhibition hall and we would enjoy greetings and visiting mutual friends. Right now, I can hear her yelling to her friends, “Ya’ll come over here and meet my uncle.” Cancer ended her career earlier this year and there will be a great hole in things this week.

That sums up the joy of these conferences to me. For nearly three days, I greet and visit with a subset of the finest individuals in the world. Oh, and I visit with some ghosts, as well. Some are real ghosts, who’ve left this life. Some are just memories of friends moved into other careers, other endeavors, or just a well-deserved retirement. In all, our state has been lucky to call these people its servants.

Oh, and the League staff. Let’s not forget them. What a crew of talented professionals. They even extend to me the courtesy of being an associate. They could just as easily think of me as the crazy old uncle that drifts through from time to time mumbling war stories.

I’ll report later on anything interesting, like the time former Forrest City Mayor, and minor legend, Danny Ferguson and I were standing at the edge of things watching the crowd. He turns to me and says, “Remember when we use to stand here and say, ‘Look at all them old goats’ and laugh?”

“Yeah,” I said, half-listening.

“Know what?”

“What?”

“We are the old goats now.”

“So, this old goat is headed to be with a group I proudly call friends: the public servants of our state. It’s not easy serving in office these days, and there certainly isn’t any great profit in it. They do it out of a sense of duty, a love of their cities, and a feeling of obligation to a great state and country.

These are things that old goats appreciate more than most. See yah.

Friends like these folks from
Twin Groves, Arkansas. I get
paid to go visit them.

Morning Thoughts: October 20, 2017

I couldn’t begin to tell you how many mayors I’ve worked with over the years, with different personalities, education, skill levels, and savvy. They formed an interesting bunch, a fine bunch, almost always. As a consultant, I’ve been very lucky.

It’s hard either to generalize or categorize. For example, I can’t point out any stereotypical qualities of female individuals. Well, they do tend to listen and pay attention more, but the men are catching up.

African-American mayors are often from the poorer communities, particularly ones that have suffered an exodus of jobs and investment. Other than being unduly beleaguered, I can’t point to any noticeable difference in ability.

I’ve served a few gay and lesbian mayors, I imagine. Never thought to inquire. There were certainly no noticeable idiosyncrasies.

Of course I have a warm spot for mayors who served in the military.

A pattern does seem to exist in that active mayors are more likely to generate formidable opponents. Those whom we might classify as “Guardians” tend to stay in office longer, but I can’t say this is a predominant trend.

Who was the best mayor whom I ever served, you ask?

Well, it was … you didn’t actually think I’d fall for that one, did you?

Almost all had certain good qualities. A few had more than normal. All in all, they were, and are, an exceptionally admirable group of people. Our state and our communities can be proud of them. I know I am.

I’ve had some interesting experiences. One of my favorites followed my reading of Robert Caro’s Path To Power, the second installment of his massive biography of Lyndon Johnson. In the book, Caro lionized Coke Stevenson, once speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, as well as Lieutenant Governor and Governor of that state. He recounted how Stevenson would often say, to delay action on something he opposed, “Let’s let the coffee cool on that.”

Wouldn’t you know? I took up the phrase in advising my mayors, one in particular. She knew very well how much I liked and used it. Once, an alderman came to me about an issue the mayor supported, one we both knew was highly subject to the dreaded “Law of Unintended Consequences.”

I advised him that more revealing info on the issue was coming and would surely make the mayor change her mind. “I think it would be best just to delay action,” I said, “Let the coffee cool on it.”

   

Yep. You’re right. He used those exact words in the city council meeting. The look that mayor gave me from her "throne on high" would have cut through a two-inch steel plate. But, they waited, new facts came in, and the proposal flew into the dust bin of bad ideas, else I would probably have been managing a fast-foot outlet shortly thereafter.

I have known, as I say, all kinds of mayors. In nearly 50 years, I’ve personally known maybe three or four that were truly unsavory. None lasted long. These were mayors that would intentionally do damage to their communities for revenge, dishonesty, or greed. That small number represents a percentage that would be the envy of any office or profession. Those on the “Dishonor Role” were easily identifiable for a number of common tendencies.

1. They didn’t hesitate to lie, even preferring it when silence or the truth would have better suited their purpose.

2. They neither knew, nor cared to know, anything about public administration or the functions of city government.

3. They concentrated on using their office to support a political party or cabal, and to spread dissention.

4. They rated employment candidates more upon family or personal relationships than experience or qualifications.

5. In dealing with contentious issues, they tended to agree and act upon the advice of the last person with whom they had talked.

6. They spent little time in City Hall.

7. They spent an inordinate amount of time demeaning their predecessors or political opponents, both publicly and personally.

8. Before being elected as mayor, they had spent little, or even no, time observing city government in action.

As I say, I’ve encountered a very, very small number of them. But those few—those dismal few—did a tremendous amount of damage to their cities and, therefore, to our state.

Just thinking.

Morning Thoughts: October 5, 2017

Woke up in Alma, Arkansas at a nice Quality Inn, thinking about what a lucky man I am. I get paid for visiting places like this. Further, it allows me to know some of the finest people on our planet, the elected officials and public servants who serve our state at the local level.

Then another thought occurred to me. I'm at the western edge of Arkansas, headed back East in a few moments. I got to thinking about how I could use the trip back to stop and visit friends along the way that I have made while working as an urban planning consultant in this state. I could just drop in and say "Hello, I was passing through and thought I would stop and say hello to wonderful friends whom I've had the pleasure of serving . I've made a few over the last nearly 50 years. Many have gone on but many are still here."

I truly believe that they would be glad to see me. I know I would enjoy it immensely.

There's just one problem.

I'd never get home.

Born to serve.

Morning Thoughts: October 4, 2017

As one whose graduate education was in public administration, I’ve nothing but praise for the women and men who work for and protect the City of Las Vegas.

They have, in my viewing of the news, operated on a professional scale that could be a model for all. They must all be exhausted, shocked, and operating on pure adrenalin, but they press on. They are simultaneously working to discover the facts, analyze the facts, report the facts (accurately), and support and comfort the survivors and their families. I’m in hopes that someone will chronicle their actions from the first shots until the final resolution.

It is with dismay that I see the “conspiracy theory worms” already crawling from beneath the rocks and out of the cesspools around the city, anxious to spew their noxious filth. It is insulting beyond belief that they do so. It cheapens the acts of heroism and professionalism displayed by the elected officials and public personnel of the city, from the brave public safety personnel to the office workers. They all deserve better, as do the victim and survivors.

I can only hope that it will stop, but I doubt that it will. The urge to rewrite history to suit our own notions and prejudices is a strong one, perhaps best described by author William Manchester while discussing the decades-long efforts to distort the facts of the assassination of John F, Kennedy by Lee Harvey Oswald. After publishing his famous work, The Death of a President, he wrote:

“In the end I concluded that [the Warren] report was correct on the two main issues. Oswald was the killer, and he had acted alone.… Those who desperately want to believe that President Kennedy was the victim of a conspiracy have my sympathy. I share their yearning … if you put the murdered President of the United States on one side of a scale and that wretched waif Oswald on the other side, it doesn’t balance. You want to add something weightier to Oswald. It would invest the President’s death with meaning, endowing him with martyrdom. He would have died for something.”

As the beleaguered public workers of Las Vegas enter their third full day of a special kind of hell instigated by a special kind of twisted mind, my hope is that we give them the undiminished support that they deserve. This includes our not paying the slightest attention to the ill-reasoned attempts that will surely emerge, attempts aimed at disparaging the findings of the professionals and confusing a stunned and stupefied public.

Sailing to Oblivium: September 11, 2017

Sad, but it takes a disaster, maybe even two or three, to make people proud of the people I’ve worked with for over 45 years. I’m talking about the people who work for the local, state, and federal governments. I don’t know if you have noticed, but they’ve been in the news lately. Oh, and they were in the news 16 years ago today when our most memorable national tragedy occurred. You may not have recognized them then, behind the dust and soot, but they were there.

These are the people who brave, daily, the antipathy of many Americans and talk-show hosts. They withstand the jokes, jibes, and slander hurled at them like bitter breaths of wind. These are the people about whom Ronald Reagan was talking when he said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.”

Oh yes, these are the folks who stormed into the burning Twin Towers to rescue people. They were there to help, and it was terrifying.

They are the ones who, along with brave civilians, rescued victims of Hurricane Harvey from swirling floodwaters. They were there to help, and it was terrifying.

They are the ones who, albeit with more time to prepare, performed a marvelous job of forecasting, planning, and oversight in dealing with Hurricane Irma. They were there to help, and it was terrifying.

And on any given day, they perform less publicized heroics, from teaching our children, to making our neighborhoods and country safe. They don't live in gold-plated penthouses. They just keep those places safe before going home to mortgaged homes in modest neighborhoods.

It saddens me when I must endure the denigration of public servants by folks who scarcely go an hour without benefiting from their service. It’s terrible to say, but the only respite from the insults comes during, and for a short time after, a disaster. The so-called libertarians grow silent, conservatives admit how lucky we were that the forecasters and rescuers were there, and even Hate Radio takes a break … sometimes. Then they’re all at it again.

Rudyard Kipling noticed it in 1890 in the attitude the British had toward their soldiers, when he wrote, in his immortal poem Tommy: “For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute! But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;”

Since I work, and have worked, with these folks, I appreciate them every day and feel proud when I call them friends and colleagues. I don’t wait until the buildings are on fire, the waters are rising, or the winds are toppling buildings, to appreciate them.

The work they do is not the problem. The work they do is the solution. There should be a national day of appreciation for our public servants. Don’t count on it, though. The winds are already subsiding. Calm will come, and once again we’ll hear, “Chuck them out, the brutes.”

Lest we forget