Meeting "The Don"

After a very long Sunday (morning service, pot luck luncheon, check in with the leaders of our campus ministry, PFLAG forum, campus ministry forum--WHEW!), you may imagine that I might be looking forward to my Monday morning "sleep in" until 9 a.m. or so. But opportunity knocked in another direction, and I rose early to take part in a conversation between the steering committee of Flint Area Congregations Together (FACT) and Flint Mayor Don Williamson.

I was happy to walk through the door to the Mayor's Office and see June Urdy's smiling face. June is a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Flint, a leader of our Worship Committee and a Board member. June and her husband Steven live downtown in the Cul-de-Sac neighborhood just west of the Cultural Center. June has been working in the Mayor's Office in an appointed position for as long as I can remember, and it was June who asked Patsy Lou Williamson to lend my parents a car for a week when they came to Flint to witness my Installation as Minister of the Flint UU congregation. (My parents and aunts Peachy and Betty loved the SUV.)

The meeting itself was relatively low-key. We wanted to introduce our fledgling organization to the Mayor) and tomorrow to his opponent in the upcoming election) and ask him where he felt he was leading the city. (A speculative question was "What would you like your legacy to be?" but I'm not sure that we asked the question that clearly.)

It was interesting to listen to this man. He wanted to make a connection with us, I think, as he began his remarks by talking about himself as a person who grew up in the church. He didn't describe his faith, but his experience and formation. I liked that. It was clear in his presentation that he knows "how to go to church." Indeed, just about every Sunday he goes to church, and often not his own congregation but one of the larger Black churches in the city. He arrives a half hour early, he told us, and he stays through the whole service. This was one of the few instances I remember in our meeting where he seemed to be a "politician."

The rest of his self-presentation was as a manager. He can tell you how many miles of streets have been paved, and how long our sidewalks are, He could talk in general but specific terms about the deficit he inherited and the balanced budget we now have. He could spew out the numbers of contracts he cancelled to be able to give more work to city agencies and city workers. And he talked about the higher morale among city employees,

He was quickly brought outside his comfort zone when we asked about a couple of issues. Rev. Sims of Quinn Capel AME asked a question about health care, the Mayor paused for a moment and then seaid that he had something to unveil, very soon, but that he hoped we would understand that he wanted to reveal his plan in his own time. A little mysterious, I guess. but not outside my exoerience with other mayors.

I aksed hime to speak about the Flint Public Schools, and it was here that it felt to me that "the manager" was most activatyed. While I know from colleagues that the Mayor is very frustrated by the state of the schools, because we have an independently elected School Board wiht its own funding, the Mayor has no formal role, even as the state of the schools is a crucial element in the revitalization of our city. But the Mayor, as manager, was able to set the questions aside because it isn't in a "department" that is under his supervision.

That was telling to me. It is not that the Mayor has no vision for the city; rather, I think, his area of strength is to manage problems, maybe even to micro-manage problems, and to come up with practical solutions that get the streets paved, limit the number of garages needed to maintain a fleet of city cars and trucks, standardize some procedures so that there is greater efficiency, etc. And he can complain that there simply isn't the revenue through taxation to get all the work done that needs to be accomplished.

It was a great change for me not to have a Mayor breaking out into a tirade at me (loke the Mayor of Boston used to do during the Janitors strike in 2005). The grandfatherly figure trying to do his best . . . left me feeling "warm and fuzzy."

My hope, of course, is that this experience of being in the public with one another will allow FACT as an organization to mature in our relationships and to focus in our work together. Mayors come and go, but the organization we hope to build ought to remain.

Cool this morning, and grey. My back is killing me, but I am awake!

Good morning,