Blog: Why Would Anyone Want to be Mayor?

A few months ago I was at a Media event in Los Angeles sponsored by TALKERS Magazine and hosted by members of the radio and press reporting community.

About 30 speakers shared their knowledge and the afternoon wrapped up with a panel discussion with about a dozen very opinionated radio personalities and the subject was: “The future of LA radio and the future of the city.” Before too long it got political and there was bashing of the City Council and especially of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. The irony was, he was standing in the back of the room and was the last speaker of the day and heard many of his pundits, yet he got up with a smile and shrugged it off.

It got me thinking about WHY in the world anyone would want to become Mayor? As much as you try to please everyone, there are many you will not. Closer to home I posed that question to Newport Beach outgoing Mayor Mike Henn, who just recently handed over the dais to Nancy Gardner.

I met Mike last year when we did a workshop in partnership with the City of Newport Beach, our first “helping 100 businesses for 100 days” event last January. Mike was one of the ones to give it a green light in a very direct, matter of fact way. When he asked, “will it help the businesses in Newport?”, I replied that it would. “Then let’s do it,” he replied and that is how quickly the decision was made.

Mike was ideally suited to run a fiscally conservative city and policy, having come from decades of Chief Financial Office positions with several Fortune 500 companies including Vons and KB Homes. Like many that want to “give back” Mike started out by joining a committee first, in this case the Planning Committee and later running for City Council in 2006. He won by a significant amount with 46 percent of the vote in that year’s open election. In 2010 he took the reins as Mayor and as he steps down will have three more years on City Council.

We spoke about the fact that you can never please everyone at one time and so it’s best to do the right thing for the city and that usually works out. I asked if he had accomplished all he set out to do in his year at the top and he responded, “I got 80 percent done of what I wanted to accomplish,” which is pretty good in any business. Along those lines we discussed how and why Charter Cities (Newport is but one of nine in the county with Costa Mesa in discussion right now) offer an advantage over General Law cities. Personally I believe that local rule is much better than from the state and that cities should be run like a business. Mike actually brought clarity to the conversation and stated, “cities are not really a business, but they should be run like a business.” Touché to that.

I wish him the best as he gives himself and his family a bit more time, and thank him for the support he has given OPIS Network and the small business community.