This Was Fun.

This year’s usual holiday party conversational gambit went something like this; "So Peter, what are you going to do now that you are off of city council?" "Will you miss it?" "Did you enjoy it?"

I did. This was fun.

My sixteen years on the West Lafayette City Council, my eight years as President, were fun.

Admittedly, that's not what is usually said at the end of a political career; even a minor one. I am supposed to say something about the rewards of public service, salute my colleagues, and praise my constituents. Consider it done.

But this was fun. That’s a surprise.

Professionally, my “day job” was as a mainline Protestant minister. That is not a growth industry. It uses a language of contraction, of diminution, and tries to make that failure praiseworthy. When a group gets smaller, it gets more idiosyncratic.

These sixteen years in city government were all about expansion, achievement. New institutions, new people, new geography were drawn into a conversation about our public life. That’s energizing. That’s fun.

I sat through months of land use planning for New Chauncey (my council district) and for the Levee district next door. Along the way I could say “let’s not put an apartment there”.  Then, okay, we won’t. I could say “let’s put that road there”; and then we put it there.

 Amazing.

 

I spent four years pushing historic preservation forward in West Lafayette. For ten years now we have protected historic homes and civic places. We have preserved our architecture, but even better we have preserved the memory of a time when the university was not a business or an industry, but a mentoring community. Faculty and students once lived together for the betterment of each other and Indiana society.

This makes a better sermon on campus ministry than any I ever preached in church.

I moved the city environmental commission out of the mayor’s office and in to city ordinance. There are car chargers out front at city hall now, and a sustainability officer at the water reclamation plant. Huge, expensive underground reservoirs keep dung and muck out of the Wabash River.

 Huh. How about that?

I felt like I won an election myself when three women I helped recruit were elected to city council this November. I like this next generation. This feels like success.

All the while these past years people like Mayor John Dennis (Katy is still trying to figure out what he meant when he told me at his council send-off  “I love you man!”) and the Development Director of our “Eagleton”, Erik Carlson, were optimistic, affable; funny. Successful."Look what you did!", I said.  No, they said; “Look what we did.”

Nice.

This was fun. Emotionally, I needed this.

To our new Madam Mayor and this new, young council, I hope you have fun too.