Dec. 18, 2003
Reflections on the role of mayor
The other night, the big screen in City Hall showed the larger-than-life face of Mayor Bill Harrison many many times. There were photos of him at countless ribbon-cuttings, meetings and gatherings. There were photos of him with members of the military, visitors from Japan, and most of all, lots and lots of Lakewood's children.
Several of his friends organized a tribute the night of Dec. 15 to pay tribute to someone who has presided over more than 475 City Council meetings and become the public face of Lakewood city government. He is Lakewood's first, and only, mayor.
I will never forget his wide-eyed reaction to one of my editorials in the Lakewood Journal, way back when, like 1995 or so. We wrote that he would be a great mayor, as long as he did not act like a general. Harrison is a retired three-star general, and in our community, with so many present and retired military, that status already affects how people see him. Harrison professed to be shocked by the bluntness of my comment, but of course I know now he had already decided to put aside the ways of a general and adopt what we think of as great qualities in a mayor: the ability to listen, the ability to suggest, the ability to decide based on the best available information at the time.
Harrison was one of the co-chairs of the political campaign to win incorporation in the first place. You have to know this to understand why he is so identified with Lakewood: he takes the city personally. During the campaign, most of the rest of speculated the city would do this, or do that. Harrison had to promise and pledge and frankly, guess, what the city would do and all eyes were on him. There was never any doubt he would be the first mayor - it would be like thinking that at the North pole, they toss a coin on Christmas Eve to determine who gets to pilot the sleigh. Hey, there's no doubt - the job is Santa's.
But Santa does not have a government to administer - the elves always seem to know what to do and we never blame them when the toys don't work - and he does not have to discuss matters with voters. The job of mayor as Harrison has carved it is tough. He has taken many, many poundings as the city has pondered controversial issues and made difficult decisions.
At the same time, most folks know that his wife, Jo, has a version of Alzheimer's that is stealing her brain and identity. My mother had the same version of dementia, and I will go out of a limb and say I know better than many of you just how Bill is suffering. With this particular condition, the patient sees things. My mother would speak of people coming out of bathtub pipes. My father cared for her to the bitter end, to the point where he ignored his own health ailments and died less than 18 months later.
I don't know the family well enough to know what Jo speaks of. I don't know what health problems of his own Bill might not even notice. But I do know Harrison's life as both mayor and devoted father will go down in legend. We probably will not be there to see the book published, but I just flat know that when they write the centennial history of Lakewood in 2095 or so, Bill Harrison will get his own chapter.
So how do you follow a legend?
Let's back up. I would suggest we need to go an entirely different path, because the city has matured and needs an entirely different kind of mayor. There is only one Bill Harrison. And there was only one time for anyone to be mayor for this long and in this way.
To understand why I say that, you have to look at the role of the council and the role of mayor. Each of seven council members has one vote - a total of seven votes. Somebody has to run the meetings - to make sure issues are explained to the audience (which includes the council members) and to make sure everyone has a chance to be heard. That's pretty much it for the prime role of mayor; there are certainly organizational issues that come from being the person who runs the meeting, but the job was designed to be the person who runs the meeting.
Of course, when the first council was formed only eight years ago, the city did not have any rules or procedures or precedent or much of anything. Look at the setting. The original council meetings were originally held in donated space with a multi-colored linoleum floor. The room used to be a kids' party playroom, the Fun Factory. Some fun for the grownups. Harrison had to lead the council from a foundation of almost literally nothing, except the guidance of other city officials from other cities, and then the guidance of volunteer study teams.
You could compare him to a midwife, and what a midwife he has been.
Thing is, at some point, the midwife needs to let go and hand the kid over to the parents. Harrison, of course, has not held on like a reluctant doctor, but he has remained the person that citizens think of as the person synonymous with city government.
That may sound benign, but it is not necessarily so. I doorbelled a whole lot of homes in 2003, and I could not go very far without having a particular form of conversation. I usually began with something like, 'How's the city treating you?" A significant number of folks responded with, 'I like/do not like city government, and this is what I like/do not like about Bill Harrison ..."
I do not blame people at all for having the impression that Bill Harrison is Lakewood city government. We all understand or at least embrace complex issues through symbols - I work at a University that treasures the symbols of a 'UW' and a Husky dog, I shop at a store that has a big "S" as a logo, I worship at a church filled with symbolic statues and signs whose meaning stretches back more than 2,000 years. People have never known a city of Lakewood campaign, or a city of Lakewood, without Bill Harrison front and center. He is a symbol of Lakewood.
One of the most popular features of Lakewood public affairs is a gathering called 'Coffee with the Mayor." Now, don't get me wrong. As a council member, I want to have coffee with whoever will have coffee with me. Outreach is good. But, as hard as it will be, remove Bill's face from your mind and then ask yourself - why do I want to have coffee with the mayor as opposed to anyone else on the council?
Thing is, Bill never had more than one vote out of seven. He was not empowered to make decisions for the group. He's just one guy. True, he is one guy with more leadership skills than a whole stack of the rest of us, but he is still one guy. And Bill Harrison is not city government. We are ready to understand the next step, and replace him as a symbol (with what new symbol? - hey, I have to write my next column about something. This column will conclude with some thoughts on the role of mayor and we will talk about symbols another day)
I'd suggest we should return to the original purpose of the position and ask first for a mayor who can run a good meeting. The mayor should keep the meeting on task and make sure all citizens can get the information they need to participate in the fact-finding and decision-making process. That's tougher than it sounds. With a complex budget, numerous employees and lots of different tasks, the city of Lakewood has a wide variety of missions at any given time, and the job is complicated by Lakewood's wide array of both advantages and challenges.
In addition, a mayor must allow for open debate and discussion, while keeping track of the various audiences and preparing to cast his or her own vote intelligently. Let me be direct - some of the members of the City Council violently disagree with each other on fundamental matters, and a mayor has to embrace those differences while presiding over what might always become a melee.
To run a good meeting, you have to give everyone a chance to be heard while keeping the really passionate people in check until they can speak out in orderly fashion. You have to keep track of what the audience knows - the members of the audience who have been to countless meetings on a topic, as well as the members of the audience who just moved to Lakewood yesterday. You have to embrace wildly different styles of communications and let the styles flourish, while showing respect for all points of view and potential presentations. You also have to understand that some people do not know how to phrase what they are thinking. You sometimes have to suggest wording, for their consideration, to help them get across the point they really want to get across. And you have to be graceful, or cool, or at least composed, to handle the sometimes bitter feelings that run down the row like electrical current.
It’s complex. Running a meeting is like being an orchestra conductor, and yet also very different. When you conduct a meeting, you have no idea who will be playing what note for how long and how one person's note will play off another person's tune. Imagine a conductor walking into the concert hall with no sure idea of what instruments the band members will bring, or what they will play.
In short, coordinating meetings is a whale of a job, and enough of a job without adding on the burden of becoming Lakewood's official symbol. We owe Bill Harrison a great debt of thanks for all he has done for his city. One of the ways we can repay him is to allow the job of mayor to evolve just as the city has evolved under his leadership - and allow the job of mayor to move on to its proper position in a maturing city.
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