Family finds in the Archive

I work for the DDN archive right now, and we're in the final stages of getting it ready to use, but one of the the things that we're doing is writing a few blog articles that promote some of the materials in the archive.  I wrote an article last week on the changes to Cedarville University's (at the time Cedarville College) campus.  Right now though, I'm working on something a little more personal.

I stumbled on a folder in the Alpha-Numeric section of the DDN archive about "Women mayors," and that made me remember that my Aunt, Georgia Hale, who was the Mayor of Fairborn from 1983 to 1987.  So I decided to go dig up her folder and see what was in it.  I found two folders, one had a few pictures in it of her, which you can see on my Facebook page, and the other had a ton of articles about her time as a councilwoman and as the first woman mayor of Fairborn.  It was interesting to look at, and at first I only gave it a quick glance.  many of the articles were just mentions of her and what the council was doing, no big deal really.  But then I started looking at the articles from 1985 onward where a new councilman came in.  This councilman had a platform that seemed to be about "This council is not listening to the will of the people."  I read the articles in my Aunt's folder which stop once her second term was up, but it looked like that councilman, one Jack Mattachione, was not done.  So I dug out his file, and sure enough, he continued on after my aunt left office, he even attempted to run for mayor in '87 as she was leaving.  I read the file on my Aunt's successor as well, George Gehlauf. 

What struck me about the whole situation was that Mattachione had an aspect that I could respect, but a lot that made me dislike him.  I tried very hard to detach myself from the fact that the person he was fighting against was my aunt.  One of the things that he said about the council was that they would try and pass something several times, even if the people of Fairborn voted it down, or they would pass provisions (which had far fewer restrictions on how they could be presented and passed) as opposed to ordinances (which had to be posted for the city to see, and be announced six weeks before they were voted on) in order to pass the things that they wanted passed.  I see where he was coming from, and to an extent, I agree with his reasoning, but my Aunt made a comment that made just as much sense, the people of Fairborn voted all of us in, and we will do what we said we were going to do.  Out of the Council members, Mattachione was one of the top vote earners, but not THE top vote earner, he represented a minority, albeit a significant minority, of Fairborn. 

So, like I said, I can see where he was coming from, but now I must talk about where I disagree with him.  The tactics that he used while on council were disrespectful.  Generally the council wrote their provisions and ordinances in a group work session, if I read the articles right.  Mattachione, on several occasions brought his own provisions and ordinances to the council, often during public meetings, that the council had not worked on in group working sessions.  The other council members considered this backhanded and dishonest and none on the council would second the proposals.  Because Mattachione was doing this in public meetings, he also would bring his supporters in, which is a wonderful way to stir up trouble.  I have worked with kids long enough to know that if they are told they did something wrong, they do their best to make sure that it is public so they can ask their classmates for support, they do this to stir up resentment of their teachers.  That's what this councilman was doing. 

If, on the other hand, he had spoken to the council in respectful ways, would he have been able to influence and change the system as he said he wanted?  I think he could have.  The Mayor who followed my Aunt, George Gehlauf, said so in one public meeting, basically giving a lecture on how the council was supposed to function.  There were times to work on legislation, there were times to discuss legislation publicly, and there were times for the public to give feedback, and all of these were announced to the public AHEAD of time.  All of these things Mattachione seemed determined to ignore, and all of these were long standing procedures.

There is one other reason to look at this.  We are all going to be part of a museum or archive staff, and we are all going to be in meetings that determine the direction of our organizations.  There are going to be people that we disagree with and there are going to be personalities that we disagree with or dislike.  But where does it get us if we let these things fester in our minds or even among our coworkers?  I have seen the politics of staff meetings at the Colonial Farm as well and the behind the scenes politics always threaten to boil over.  We need to be careful to be respectful of those we disagree with, at least if I am the respectful one, I know that I am not causing the problems.