A Little Too Close to Home
By Albert B. Kelly
On various occasions over the years, I’ve often said that
there is no layer of government between municipal and the street. That’s not in
any way meant to be a complaint or a criticism, but simply a statement of what
I believe to be true. What I mean by this is that municipal government is the
layer of government that residents interact with on a regular and intimate
basis. Municipal government is the layer of government that is most visible to people
followed by county government (think San Bernardino shooting). It’s not that
the other layers of government don’t impact our lives; it’s just that there is
a certain distance- whether real or imagined- the higher up the food chain we
go.
Not so much with municipal government. Our interactions are
up close and personal with our residents whether the dialogue comes at a City
Council meeting, out on a street corner, or in the corridors of City Hall. That
closeness and intimacy was what crossed my mind when I heard about the gunman
in Virginia Beach who killed 11 municipal employees and a contractor getting a permit
while injuring 4 others including a police officer in a moment of madness. This
particular shooter wasn’t just a random citizen, but a former employee who had
tendered his resignation earlier in the day.
Reading the accounts hit close to home as I pictured the
colleagues I work with at City Hall. Some of those killed had worked for the
Virginia Beach municipality for decades and I immediately thought of our most
senior employees who’ve logged decades working for our community. Others killed
in the attack worked in the finance department, planning department, and code
and I thought about those in Bridgeton who work in these same capacities.
All of it struck close to home because I could easily
picture the end of the work day at the Virginia Beach municipal building just
as I can see it here at our City Hall Annex on Friday afternoon when employees
are ending the week and getting ready for the weekend. It’s a common scene, an
everyday scene, a boring scene and one you simply take for granted because it’s
so mundane. For me, there’s a certain comfort in the ordinariness and the
routine, because if municipal government is anything, it’s mostly ordinary-
until it’s not.
Perhaps it’s a commentary on our society or it’s just the
way things are as we approach the third decade of the 21st century,
but we’re now routinely thinking about security whether it’s the buzzers on the
doors or the panic buttons spread throughout municipal offices. More places are
doing active shooter drills and gaming out what to do if the ordinary becomes
extraordinary. I guess we’re all accustomed to thinking this way after goodness
knows how many mass shootings in schools, churches, movie theaters, night
clubs, and now municipal buildings.
It hits close to home because you never know what will be
that one thing that sends a soul over the edge or into a murderous rage. In
this case it was a former employee and we know “disgruntled employees” can be
found anywhere. Yet, we also have our share of angry citizens. This is not
surprising because goodness knows there are times that we fall short in
municipal government, though we try not to.
Being “municipal” as we are, the reminders of our
shortcomings are often daily ones in the form of the trash that wasn’t picked
up, the pot hole we’ve not yet gotten to, the snow that remains to be plowed,
or the grass that needs cutting just to name a few. Could one of these things
be the trigger or will it be a code violation or tax bill? I pray not.
Disgruntled employees aside, because that’s its own thing, I
know that residents can get annoyed or be frustrated about a municipal issue and
I know they often have good reason to be. Being able to help residents and
solve problems, or at least make some measurable progress for them, has always
been one of the things that I’ve appreciated most about having no layer of
government between us the street. I guess Virginia Beach hits close to home
because it reminds me that these absence of layers, the very closeness and
intimacy I’ve valued most about municipal government, can also leave my
colleagues and me feeling awfully exposed and vulnerable.