Othello

Every now and again I stumble into a conversation accidentally that is more serendipitous than I could have planned well in advance. Driving through Washington State from Moscow, Idaho I planned to stop in Washtucna. The name sounded funny enough and I wanted to talk to a small town Washingtonian. When I finally got there, the two people I saw in town were too busy. Such is life. I continued on until I had to fuel up. The landscape leading across central Washington made sense of “amber waves of grain” for me in a way it never had before. The dry wheat fields rolled over towering but gentle hills. 

Eventually the road lead me to Othello, a lovely town of about 8000 people in Eastern Washington. I took the opportunity to walk down Main St. in search of conversation. After pacing for 20 minutes, finding no one outside, I wandered into City Hall. There, Jackee was working a window, helping a woman with a form. I asked her if I could talk to anyone, maybe her, for a project I’ve been working on. She responded excitedly, “you could talk to our mayor?” I accepted the tentative offer enthusiastically. In a few moments, Shawn Logan, Othello City Mayor, invited me into his office to sit and talk. Our first words were just about the town. I asked him a bit about his 6 years as mayor.

“When I first ran for mayor, I thought that this job was going to be important, yes, but mostly kissing babies and cutting ribbons. Then shortly into my tenure, we had 2 pumps break during a season of triple digit temperatures and it woke me up to the serious responsibility of this job and what we have to do to make this community sustainable. We have a real water struggle here. It’s basically the desert here by us. I realized we needed the city to have a 50 year plan for our water, not just for how we are now but for the city as it grows and changes too. 

Right now we’re dependent on natural aquifers exclusively. But I’m working to expand our sources to renewable surface water sources, and I think most interesting to use the water from our food processing industry in town. We’re going to take that water, polish it to A class standards and then pump it back into the aquifer for use. It’s funny, initially I thought we’d just use the polished water straight back into people’s taps but there’s a mental thing about having food-processing water, no matter how well polished. So we put it back in the aquifer and no one has a mental issue with it anymore. 

People ask how much it’s going to cost and what not, but that’s the wrong question. This is fundamental to a city’s survival, to our businesses, to our agriculture, we can’t grow anything without water. This is the critical issue for our time. I like to rip off Star Trek a little bit, saying space isn’t the final frontier. Water is the final frontier.”

He was, like a politician, a good talker. This always makes my job easier when people are willing to elaborate unprompted. The only task here was keeping the flow directed toward the questions I needed answered, Shawn would do most of the rest of the work. Switching the subject to the questions I had come with, I asked him what respect means in his life.

“It comes from the way I was raised, the values I learned, and I think most of that for me comes in a faith in God. You can only take your parents’ faith or values so far before you have to accept or reject it in yourself, and I’ve done both.”

The joke landed well. We both laughed.

“Really it comes down to recognizing that people have value, and treating them as valuable. Respect means doing what you can to recognize and serve another person’s value. For example right now, I could be doing other work, of course, I have other things on my plate. But you were looking for honest answers to questions, and I can give those. That’s how I feel respect.

Even more than that, it’s not jumping to be offended or aggressive. In this position, it’s easy to be offended, especially when people who oppose my work can throw public tantrums, can generate so much acrimony. I can’t retaliate, there’s a level of decorum I need to maintain for my role, but even more than that, it’s a matter of good sense. We live in a time of retaliatory politics. Sometimes to get things done though, you need to take an insult on the chin for people to realize you’re in this for the good of the community, not for points. Respect sometimes is taking a punch in order to get the other person to open up.”

His earlier joking stuck in my head for a moment. I asked what he meant when he said he both accepted and rejected his parents’ values. He responded at first with a story of a mini-documentary he had recently seen by Chris Herren, former pro basketball player, about drug use. In his retelling, Herren picked up drinking at 12, in his alcoholic father’s image. Herren’s mother secretly complained to him of having to go to sleep next to the smell of beer on his father’s breath every night. One night Herren himself was drunk off his father’s beer and when his mom came to him for a hug, he ran away, not wanting her to smell the same scent on his breath.

“That was me in a nutshell. You reach a point sometimes trying to fit in, or do the thing you think is cool. You reach a point where your parents don’t even know you anymore. I knew better but I wanted to do what I wanted. At a certain point though, you just get tired of being miserable and separate from the people you love. It’s painful to have that distance.”

Sensing a turnaround story, I asked him what someone needs to live a good life.

“Purpose. A sense of purpose is the key. I believe everyone has a purpose, a God-given purpose. And that can sound a bit cliché, but I’ll clarify. I think the seeds for this purpose are planted in every life. And I think God has a vested interest in seeing those seeds come to pass. Those seeds are the things you’re good at, and it’s your job to develop them. For example, I took a math course in my sophomore year of college at Central. The first test of the semester. And I got the 2nd highest score in the class. I thought to myself, “Wow! I must be good at math!” It changed my whole perspective. That was when I decided to be a business major and I think what set me on my path to today. So that process of finding your talents and following their path, is crucial. And then if you find a mate who has their own purpose but the two of you can grow together and support each other’s purpose, that all leads to a good life.”

Asked about dignity, Shawn paused for the first time in our conversation. When he picked back up, he had a simple formulation:

“Are you the person you look up to? Or do you hate yourself? Do you cheat and steal and ignore your family or your responsibilities? Or do you follow what you know to be right as much as you can? Do you give people what you can for them to be better and go further than you can? If you have this, you’ve got dignity, and no one can take that from you unless you give it up.”

Something in this triggered a thought for him and our conversation drifted toward Seattle, where I was headed later in the day. Shawn talked about the drug crisis in America with a somber tone. As he bemoaned drug abuse, he connected to Seattle, latching also onto the homelessness crisis in major cities.

“I was in a Starbucks in Seattle and went for one of the vanilla shakers for my drink and there wasn’t any. The barista explained that a methadone clinic opened across the street and the homeless people that spent time there kept stealing the shaker so they just stopped putting it out.

To me it feels like these are problems that are not getting better with the policies we’ve been using. There is of course room for compassion but there also needs to be a point when we examine the results of the policies. I don’t see how these are working, the free needle policies or these clinics that don’t discourage use, just treat the symptoms. We need to find ways to discourage all of this, not just clean up after it. There are other members in these communities, and businesses that have been here before that need must be upset to have rising homelessness and drug use outside their door. It’s harder for these communities that deal with homelessness and drug use to function normally too.”

He told me to look out for what he was talking about when I went to Seattle. I had been once before and not noticed terribly much. When I went later in the day I noticed several people on the street. I thought back to sunset several days earlier in Twin Falls Idaho, climbing on the rocks of the gorge and finding a rubber arm band and used needle laying behind a stone. I don’t initially sympathize with his distaste for the homeless. I tend to see them and drug addicts as more victim of systemic pressures. But I could see the inputs to his opinion. 

I asked to close, what he’s missing or pursuing still in his life. He nodded, pondering one answer and stopping himself. Instead he straightened slightly and smiled mischievously,

“I’m going to be governor of this state one day.”

I leaned forward and smiled. That was not the answer I was expecting.

“Why would this state, as liberal as it is, vote for a conservative small town mayor from a city of 8000 to run the state? Why pick someone like me instead of the people with more standing, fame, connections? I’m beginning to see the path, the seeds were planted for this. A small town mayor has to resonate with the issues of cities like Seattle, the downtowns of the state on issues like the environment, traffic, congestion, and the way of life from those areas. I happen to be conservative but that label doesn’t mean everything to me, it’s a reduction and so much of our politics today are wrapped up in these performances. If you’re going to get anything done, you’ve got to have a bigger tent. I’m here to get things done, and I think that can resonate with the cities of Washington.”

I could see the ambition in his face. An example of a conservative with a serious practical view on environmental issues and a classical style business-mindedness. This is the conservative I hope for when I think about an ideal opposition party. Someone that recognizes the basic facts of the same issues and differs on solutions. I could imagine him making a play.