I See Some Light There

I arrived at the Brighton, Colorado conference center at 7:45 on a snowy January morning. Given the condition of the roads, I was surprised to see the parking lot was full. Inside were a few dozen mayors from the Denver Metro Mayors Caucus, all ready for a full day retreat, despite the Colorado weather.

I serve as mayor pro tem of Lyons, Colorado. I am a member of the Board of Trustees of our town and was chosen as mayor pro tem by the mayor and members of the board. If the mayor is out of town, I chair meetings, sign checks and whatnot. Under normal circumstances I would not have been invited to the retreat. However, I had been invited to give the keynote address to kick off the morning of the retreat.

It was quite an honor to speak to the mayors representing pretty much the entire Front Range of Colorado. Sixty percent of the state’s sales tax revenue comes from those cities. You might expect these mayors to be ambitious folks with a lot of ego need and not much ego strength, kind of what we see in national politics nowadays. If you thought that, you would be wrong.

Only the mayors of Denver and Aurora (you know the city “taken over” by Venezuelan gangs) have full time jobs. The rest have a day job, and for most of them, a pretty demanding day job. From my observation these mayors had the kind of strengths Henri Nouwen talked about as being common in great leaders – equal parts confidence and humility. They were not particularly enamored with themselves, but they did take their task seriously.

These folks certainly do not serve for the pay. Our mayor in Lyons earns $8,000 a year. Most of the folks there earn $20,000 or less. And though it is not full time, serving as mayor is pretty consuming. In most locations the job is nonpartisan. With a couple of exceptions, I had no idea about the party affiliation of those at Saturday’s retreat. In a late morning session all of them gathered around tables to set priorities about ways in which they can work together for the betterment of their citizens. It was fun watching them brainstorm priorities among subjects that might put the rest of us to sleep, like infrastructure, construction defects, and zoning.

They also talked about the character traits most important to them in their coworkers. Highest on the list were trust, honesty, and follow-through, traits I saw in the mayors themselves.

I was able to stay through mid-afternoon, through the presentations by the kinds of organizations known by their acronyms, CML, DRCOG, RTD, and such. These organizations serve the needs of the cities. The general public might not know they exist, but the mayors do.

I was greatly encouraged by the retreat. This is where most of the real work gets done in America – at the local level, and these people refuse to be deterred by national politics. Of course they have concerns, and when the new president arbitrarily halts all federal funding, they know their citizens will be the ones who are hurt, regardless of how they voted. But these local leaders press on, because nobody else is going to repair that box culvert, secure those water rights, or increase services to senior citizens.

I thought of our own town board meetings, starting at 5:30 pm and often lasting over four hours. There are some really late nights, with most people getting up early the next morning to go to their day jobs.

In these days in which all the ego-needy national pundits desperately grasp for power, it was good to be reminded that the people who actually keep this nation running are meeting together on a nonpartisan basis, keeping our democracy functioning and stable.

I’m reminded of the phrase commonly attributed to former Speaker of the House, Tip O’Neill – “All politics is local.” I hope it is true, because if it is, I see some light at the end of the tunnel.

And so it goes.