They Know The Truth

OK, I’ve now been in the Mayor’s office for almost two months. What are my initial impressions? What surprises me, and what requires some adjustment?

 In no particular order of importance, here are a few…

·         Salt Lake County government is a large and complex organization. We have thousands of employees, scores of services and hundreds of buildings. It’s hard to learn it all, even if you’re a full time employee with time to master it. So, I often wonder, how is John Q. Public supposed to figure this out? And, in fact, many never will. That was made clear today when I received an e-mail from a frustrated constituent certain that only “real city mayors” had “real responsibilities.”

“Why should I pay Ben McAdams salary,” she said, “there’s absolutely nothing for him to do.”

·         I had no idea how many beautiful facilities Salt Lake County owns. Places like the Viridian Center, Abravenal Hall, South Mountain Golf Course, The Capitol Theatre and the list goes on and on. By now, if someone told me the Taj Mahal or Pebble Beach were county facilities, I’d believe them.

·         The person who did the numbering system for the Government Center was perverse. I’ve been given office numbers and wound up totally lost. I’ve given office numbers to others fearing they’d never find their destination. Last week I ran into a soul directed to the assessor’s office days before. Worn down, confused, exhausted, he was now resigned to an $800,000 appraisal on his two-bedroom home. “Please,” he said, “just show me the way out.”

·         There’s only one person who’s mastered all there is to know about the county, he’s Ben’s assistant, and his name is Jon Hennington. No bit of County minutia has escaped him; no minor bureaucrat is unknown to him. I swear, if I called out, “Jon, who’s the second assistant deputy director of drainage design?” He’d have a name, a phone number and someone to call if the second assistant was out of town.

·         Whatever else there is to know about our deputy mayor, there is not one single ounce of “stroll” in that woman. Everywhere Nichole Dunn goes she marches with a stride and determination that would challenge any brick wall to stop her.  When she charges out the door at the end of the day I fear for some poor dog at home, soon to be walked, and expected to keep pace at the end of a leash.

·         I occupy a desk just outside the mayor’s office.  It’s the first bit of furniture you see when you walk through the door and into the mayor’s suite. There are two realities existing on either side of that door. First, there are people from the outside who think I’m someone far more important than I am. Second, there are those people whose job exists inside that door, and they know the truth.  

A Star Without Pedigree, A Wonder Without Precedent

For the most part, people who have important positions on the mayor’s staff share a common pedigree. They combine excellent academic preparation with a sequence of ever more responsible administrative positions. You meet them, ask what they were doing before they joined us, and it all makes sense.

There are a few exceptions, however, and I’m on that short list of wildcards. It would take someone far more creative than I am to draw a logical line between a South Salt Lake liquor store and the mayor’s office.

I’m painfully aware of that fact, and I work hard to prevent eyebrows being raised and questions being asked.

However, as short as that list might be, I’m not the only person on it, and when a fellow wildcard proves to be a star it gives me infinite satisfaction.

A case in point is Celina Milner.

She’s a lovely Latina with great interpersonal skills and a quick mind. Be in her presence for a minute and it’s impossible not to want her friendship.

She is that charming.

Celina also belongs to a small cadre I call, “The Miller Musketeers.” We are three in number – me, Joel Freston and Celina. We all report to Justin Miller. We all are recent graduates of a political campaign. And we all have responsibility for some part of constituent relations.

That makes us unique, and it brings us all together.

As I suggested, Celina didn’t take the usual route to the Mayor’s office. About ten years ago she was a newly single mother of two. It was a status she hadn’t planned for, and she didn’t have a roadmap.  Yet, over the intervening decade she found a way to raise two great kids and become a successful sales executive in the hospitality industry.

If she had done nothing more, Celina, like millions of other single mothers, would have qualified for the Congressional Medal of Motherhood.  But somehow, starting with such a terrible deficit and then achieving the impossible, wasn’t all she had in mind.

Celina decided to invest back in her community all the free time and surplus energy that comes with single motherhood. (Feel free to laugh.) She volunteered for non-profit boards and put her hand in the air whenever a worthy cause asked for help. That avocation for community service reached its zenith when last year she ran for the state legislature and lost by only a few hundred votes.

Now, last week, she was sitting at my desk planning a new literacy outreach for Salt Lake County. It occurred to me that while my segue into county government may have been unconventional, hers was miraculous. I danced into Ben’s office with a surplus of conviction and enthusiasm, but like Ginger Rogers, Celina did it dancing backwards and in high heels.

How does that happen? Well, I learned that creativity and resourcefulness played a part.

We were talking about ways to bring reading into the life of poor Hispanic families who have pre-school children. Bookmobiles came to mind.  “Ben’s Book Club For Kids" was another idea. There was a suggestion for story hours to be held at community laundromats.

Then it occurred to me that I should ask Celina about her own experience. What had she done to help her pre-school children learn to love books? After all, the accomplished, confident and articulate woman sitting across from me wasn’t always that way. There must have been a time when Celina was poor, scared and making it up as she went along.

“So, what did you do?” I asked, “How’d you get your kids to like books.”

“We went to Costco,” she said matter-of-factly.

“How would a trip to Costco help with something like that?”

“Well, for us at least, Costco wasn’t just about shopping. It was the only family outing we could afford. We treated it like a carnival or a street fair. There were new things to see, people to watch, and all these wonderful samples of free food. Best of all, the price of admission was free – if you didn’t count the membership card.”

“That’s great, but what does any of this have to do with books?”

Celina looked at me as if I was hopelessly out of touch. “Do you belong to Costco?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“And you know they sell books, right? They have these long tables stacked with books, including children’s books.”

“Yes, I know, and they’re a bargain. But they’re not free.”

“Who said we bought them?” she asked.

“But if you didn’t buy them, Celina, how could you read them?”

“Easy, we’d go through all the children’s books, every one of them, and find a few we thought promising. Then we’d find the furniture display – there’s always a furniture display with big overstuffed chairs and couches. We’d cuddle together on that couch as if in our very own 100,000 square foot home. I'd read out loud, and gradually, as the story rolled along, it was as if no one else was there.”
 
“Sounds magical,” I said.

“It was.”

“And an object lesson in getting the most out of your Costco membership.”

“That too,” she laughed.

So there you have it, a Latina who found a way to launch herself from a couch at Costco right into the mayor’s office. She’s a star without pedigree, and a wonder without precedent. Next to her story my own little tale about a liquor store seems almost routine and predictable.

Who knows, if I hang around Celina long enough perhaps my colleagues will one day look at me and think, “Yeah, a liquor store, that makes sense.”

The Black Box

Before Ben's inauguration becomes a distant spec in the rearview mirror I'd like to offer a memory.

From the moment of Ben's first assurance I'd be on his staff, until I first occupied a desk outside his office door, my attention did not belong to where I was. I may have occupied a few square feet in a liquor store on Miller Avenue, but my enthusiasm belonged to a future in a very different place.

It was an odd feeling of life suspended. Yes, I was excited, but there was also a growing sense of disconnection from my current circumstance.

I sent Ben a text begging for some small part in the transition, perhaps a bleacher seat from which to watch furniture being moved. Anything.

For a long while there was silence, then I got an e-mail from Donald Dunn. Joel Freston had the flu, could I assume his position on the inauguration steering committee?

Could I?... Where?! How?! When?!

BOOM! That morning I showed up at 9:00 for a 10 o'clock meeting at Rose Wagner Theatre.

The theater's lobby was almost empty. The one exception was a formidable young woman with the bearing of a fleet admiral. She was wedded to a cell phone. As my glance targeted her she turned toward starboard hoping my approach could be deflected.

As her conversation ended the phone returned to her palm like an exercise grip.

"Pardon me," I asked her, "are you here for a meeting about the mayor's inauguration?"

"Yes," she said, "and you are?"

"George, I'm here for Joel... Joel Freston."

"Oh," she replied, "there's a lot to get done. I'm Marla Kennedy, the event planner. Your responsibility is parking, the Ben Bus and the black box."

"The black box?" I wondered, unwilling to betray that I had no idea what "the black box" might be.

"Okay," I said with ersatz confidence, "parking, the Ben Bus and the black box."

She acquired my attention with a direct unwavering stare, "You and I, we'll do just fine if you remember two things."

"Which are?"

"Follow through, and keep me in the loop."

"Yes ma'am."

Then Marla Kennedy walked away and sat down at a long table stacked with folders filled with papers. She conducted herself as a no-nonsense woman with a sense of command and control. I felt like a dimwitted newbie at the top of a run with no experience and skis attached.

My mind ran through a rolodex of blank cards. "A black box? A black box? A black box? Could this be where we keep a list of emergency protocols? Maybe it contains a red button that instantly summons Sherriff's deputies. Perhaps the County has a secret fleet of ICBM's and the launch codes are kept in 'The Black Box'"

I had no idea, but I wasn't about to display my ignorance to Marla Kennedy.

After an hour of silent speculation, during which the Admiral reviewed and sorted papers, pausing only to text someone, the meeting got underway.

Marla Kennedy went around the table pointing at each of us, identifying us by name and announcing our responsibilities.

Finally she got to me. "George Pence, he's new, he'll be responsible for parking, the Ben Bus and... who's handling Market Street Grill?"

"Joel was," a woman named Kimi replied, "but I'll do that."

"Good."

The announcement of assignments appeared to be over, but nothing was said about "The Black Box." I gave way to a sense of temporary relief.

After a few beats of silence another woman named Vicki spoke up, "What about THE BLACK BOX, who's responsible for THE BLACK BOX?"

"Right, that's George."

"Oh," Vicki replied, looking at me with what appeared to be a new found sense of gravity.

A few moments of silence transpired while this announcement sunk in. Would I have to finally surrender and ask out loud, "What's The Black Box?"

"Oh dear Lord," I said to myself, "please pass this cup from my lips. Don't make me admit my unworthiness to all these fine people. Don't force me to confess that the 'Ark of The County Covenant' shouldn't be in my keeping."

I bowed my head and resolved to seal my fate, to let all know I was the joker in this deck of cards.

Then Vicki piped up, "Should George be responsible for the black box? I mean, we stuff it full of staplers, duct tape and Band Aids. Where's he going to get it all? He doesn't work for the county. He can't hijack them from a liquor store."

Admiral Kennedy looked at her briefly, "You're right, the black box is yours."

"Fine," she responded, "if that's all right with you, George?"

"No problem Vicki, besides, I wasn't sure what kind of duct tape the mayor preferred."

That remark describes the end of my first few hours with the McAdams' administration. How I longed for the feeling of certitude when a customer asked me the difference between a fifth and a liter.

Open The Windows

Yesterday Ben sat down at my desk and asked if he could read through his first "State of The County" address. This speech had gone through repeated rewrites, midnight editing and critiques from dozens of experts.

I, however, was yet to read it.

Yes, I was curious... partly because Ben himself gave it so much emphasis. Maybe he thought it vitally important because it was like a first date with his new county constituents, maybe it was because he saw it as a script for the rest of his term, or maybe he's just a perfectionist.

Whatever the reason, I knew he had labored over it and wanted it to be just right.

I listened attentively, appreciating the ideas, the syntax, the delivery. All the while I glanced at my watch knowing this last rehearsal would be necessarily incomplete. We had ten minutes before the speech had to be given for real.

As my eyes again referred to my wrist Ben's voice rose to a crescendo, "I promise to wring every last efficiency from county government."

I looked up doubtfully, "Don't you mean every last inefficiency?"

A mild expletive escaped his lips as his pen scratched the page in front of him. "Open the windows, turn up the heat!" he said in an exasperated tone.

I took satisfaction in knowing that my editorial comment would be the smallest, the last and the surest of inclusion.