Archive for August 2007
A Conversation with Gov. Martin O’Malley
Usually, Ben recognizes the celebrities/politicians first and I walk on by, completely oblivious. His “star-dar” as I call it, is finely tuned after 7 years of being in the news industry and I’m finally learning some of it. Tonight, I noticed (the former Mayor) Governor Martin O’Malley as we were leaving one of our favorite city restaurants, Maggie Moore’s.
He was on his cell phone and when we had exited the building I said to Ben: “That guy looked a lot like Martin O’Malley.” Ben was at first dubious until he saw the black SUV and the bodyguard out front that immediately confirmed that it was O’Malley. I went back into the lobby of the restaurant and introduced myself to the Governor. Typically, I would have not wanted to say anything, but after the obligatory greetings I said, “Governor, thank you for fixing the Russell Street Bridge.”
He completely lit up. His response, to the best of my ability of recalling it and some summarization, was as follows:
“Thank you for recognizing that work. When I was first approached to approve the work, I knew that it needed to be done. But shortly afterwards, there was a much louder group of people arguing against the resources being allocated for the bridge. Even people working on the project mentioned that I could have not done it, as the ribbon cutting wouldn’t be done on my watch. But I knew, that if something happened, if lives were lost, there was a significant possibility of it happening during my term as Mayor and that would be unforgivable.”
“The tragedy in Minneapolis has given me reassurance that I did the right thing.”
The Minneapolis Bridge Tragedy has made me appreciate even more the construction that has taken years to complete over on our side of the city. I’m really glad that nothing has happened here, but I’m also glad that we had a Mayor who recognized the need of fixing a bridge regardless of it being finished during his terms as Mayor. For me, that is a sign of integrity. We can only hope that the next mayor will have the same, if not more, sense of moral obligation and integrity in their term as mayor.
