Public Service Matters

30 years of advice, teaching and listening

by Scott C. Paine, Florida League of Cities

I had forgotten about this one.

Doing some office cleaning, I “ found my copy of my tenure packet, a modest 3-inch-thick binder full of course syllabi, student classroom climate surveys, publications, presentations and notes of praise and thanks. And there, near the back, was my first article in the League’s magazine, Quality Cities (QC). It was next to a thank you letter from Beth Dolan, who was the Citizenship Education Director for the Florida League of Cities (FLC) in May 1993. Almost 30 years ago.

I’ve spilled a lot of digital ink since then. I wrote another article in the mid- 1990s that was a reflection on the balancing act of public service and one’s private life. By late 2000, I was writing regularly for QC.

Over the ensuing 22 years, I’ve written about policy, politics and the personal challenges (and joys) of public service. I have often employed metaphors and analogies to connect the unique realities of public service to the more familiar. There was the blue heron I watched one morning trying to swallow a very large catfish, which came to symbolize the Catch-22 many cities have faced after landing new businesses or residential developments without yet having the capacity to adequately serve them. Or the double oath imposed upon Pedro de Valdivia by the citizens of Santiago, Chile, before they would accept him as Governor, a reminder that when we take the oath of office, we ought to mean it. Or my pastor preaching at his father’s funeral, a symbol of so many public leaders who, in times ” of community suffering and loss, find something beyond themselves that empowers them to bring healing and hope in the midst of their own pain.

There also have been very personal columns. When our daughter, Bakhita, died in 2003, I found it necessary to bring that story to QC’s pages and received gracious prayers and words of encouragement from so many FLC staff and QC readers that helped me heal. When our nation was confronted by the death of George Floyd and our failure to love all of our neighbors as ourselves, I unfolded a painful account of my own implicit bias, and I hoped to encourage more of us to take that deep look in the mirror.

It is said of preachers that each one has about six sermons in them. What we hear week after week is simply the reworking of those themes with different material. It’s a sharp-edged, mildly amusing and, perhaps, quite accurate claim. It’s one that likely applies as much to secular authors and lecturers as it does to ministers.

Our success in influencing or elevating others is in proportion to their belief in our belief in them.

Truthfully, when I think about all these years of writing and speaking, all the columns and programs and webinars and workshops, I think it essentially all boils down to a single theme. What you do as a public servant, and how you do it, matters. It matters far more than it appears, far more than you or anyone else will ever know.

The policy decisions matter, of course, as do the acts that implement them. Many of them are mundane, but communities are sustained in health and vitality by myriad mundane actions. A Council adopts a budget that funds positions, equipment and materials. The people in those positions monitor the water supply and the treatment of wastewater. They clean conference rooms and restrooms. They replace streetlights and signs. They maintain and position the equipment purchased so that the municipality and its residents are cared for as intended when the Council voted. Bills are paid, contracts awarded, budgets balanced, and next year’s budget is prepared.

None of this is glamorous. All of it is vital to the health and well-being of every little downtown, every major commercial district, every bedroom community, every home.

And you do it. Every day. You provide the direction, approve the resources and take the actions that make each Florida city someplace people can call home with a measure of pride and satisfaction.

Of course, it’s not always smooth sailing. In times of conflict or crisis, tempers flare, people lose perspective, and sometimes communities lose their way.

What you do in these moments can make an incredible difference. Each of us probably has a memory of someone who, against the forces of nature or the worst that is in human nature, spoke and acted boldly, helping to galvanize a people’s response to crisis and overcome that adversity.

But, to be honest, it isn’t always the case that there is, or even can be, some set of actions that meet the current crisis and defeat it quickly.

It’s especially in those moments when chaos reigns that the “how you do it” part of my theme comes to the fore. There might not be anything you or any one person or small group can do to steady the ship and calm the waters. But your calm, your determined commitment to the people you serve, even when they are serving up vitriol, makes more of a difference than you can imagine. Ultimately, people want peace, and your calm suggests it is possible. They want security, and your commitment assures them that, somehow, they will be secured. They want hope. Your decision to believe in what is possible, when all seems lost, restores it.

Whether my topic was ethics or leadership, communication or Home Rule, public finance or public participation, when I look back, I see one fundamental message woven through it all: What you do as a public servant, dear reader, and how you do it, matters. It matters far more than it appears, far more than you or anyone else will ever know.

My time in elected office was a brief eight years. I’ve spent a much longer time working with public servants, spanning my adult life from age 19 to the present moment. I’m unlikely to add to the former; I can’t imagine not continuing in the latter.

But I have imagined, in recent months, a new chapter, one that centers on my own community and my own little “city.” My family, counting the spouses of my married children and all the grandkids, is nearly as large or larger than the population of four of Florida’s cities! Turning that page means changing my relationship with the League and with you, dear reader.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.

In August of this year, I will be retiring from my position as Director of Leadership Development and Education with FLC University.

I’m not riding off into the sunset nor escaping to a remote island in the Pacific. I’m staying right here, in Florida, where I hope to contribute by other means to the good work we have been doing together. Exactly where and how our paths will cross again, dear reader, I do not know. But I suspect they will.

People who care about their neighbors, about their communities, have a way of finding each other. They also have a way of figuring out not the ultimate solution to the great problems that face us, but the next thing they can do that makes a difference. You’ll go on making that difference, and I will, too. Inevitably, that means we’ll be working side-by-side, even if at a distance.

What you will do, and how you will do it, matters. It will matter far more than you will ever know.

Scott C. Paine, Ph.D., is Director of Leadership Development and Education for FLC University. He previously worked at the University of Tampa as Associate Professor of Communication and Government and served for eight years on Tampa’s City Council.