May 8, 2004
'Hey, Walter, where did you go?'
There is nothing more embarrassing than getting elected to public office and then disappearing off the face of the earth.
Well, that’s not strictly true: There are things more embarrassing. I’ve tried to sing publicly, for example. Yech. And then there was the day I went out unaware I’d grabbed pants with a big hole in the wrong location. But for the sake of giving this column a theme, there is nothing more embarrassing than getting elected to public office and then disappearing off the face of the earth.
Many people noticed I stopped going to meetings I usually attended, and I was showing up at the nick of time or even later for some others. This was a nasty problem to have when you campaign on the pledge of being responsive to citizens. So let me offer a quick explanation:
I work in an office at the University of Washington with 13 employees. I usually supervise two, though I have previously been acting director when the director was away. Those were usually pretty busy days or weeks, but they were that busy in a temporary way. Our office’s job is to produce information about UW’s massive medical school and hospitals, and the health sciences research that goes on there. In addition, our office sometimes helps when the situation gets tricky, such as when the UW had to announce a settlement for $35 million with the federal government on April 30 to end an investigation that had gone on for 4 1/2 years.
What happened in January was that our director told me about 4:30 p.m. one day that he would be cleaning out his office that night. I became acting director the next morning, and stayed acting director until May 3. Our office is pretty high profile: when our director offered up his resignation, both a Seattle daily and the UW student newspaper chose to write about it. The following months were a very exciting time: the great team in our office produced some great news releases and publications and special events and news conferences; a new office manager and I submitted our first UW office budget; and we helped handle tricky situations like the aforementioned settlement. This took a bunch of time, and so I ended up having to work long days at the office. Did you see me at the news conference? Both KOMO and KING showed the side of my coat.
So that’s the saga, but fortunately, it is a temporary saga. The good news is that our new director, Tina Mankowski, a longtime veteran of UW operations at Harborview Medical Center, rode in for the rescue. So I am now back to my normal job, with relatively normal hours, and looking forward to having energy again for Lakewood (not to mention my family)
There’s a part of me that is not real happy that the momentum that I got from election to office got whomped by circumstances. I’ve missed being able to spend more time in Lakewood in the morning and in the evening. But changing circumstances are what life is all about. I intend to charge forward and do my best to represent you on the council.
Click here to close this window.
Click here to close this window.