Official's Quiet Resignation Won't Sell Many Newspapers, but His Service Was Commendable

The other day I read on AnnArbor.com that Saline City Council member Pat Ivey is resigning. After getting over the initial sting of Lisa Allmendinger beating me to the story, my thoughts turned to Ivey’s departure and what that means.

It’s hard to say how much any one person means to a city, but I can say this: I admire the way Ivey handled himself at the council table. Citizens who voted for Ivey ought to have been pleased to have a representative like Ivey.

Let me back up to this past November to provide a little context. I was still working at my old job and we’d just come off a contentious election campaign where the village president was ousted by another member of the council—a homegrown resident who was the son of a much-loved and longtime police chief who had recently passed. The council needed to pick a trustee to replace the one voters selected as president. Things got hairy when the new president cast his vote for opening the job up for applications instead of picking the woman who’d just finished fourth in the race for three council chairs. One councilor was so upset, he burst from the table, muttered a few expletives and stormed out of the meeting. The next day, the town was abuzz because of a message left by the passed-over candidate on the village president’s Facebook page: “#*@* you Mr. President.”

It was the last meeting I covered before getting to work launching Saline-Milan Patch. Somehow, I knew it was time for me to move.

Saline residents ought be proud of the way they are represented by their current group of City Council members and school board trustees. No, I’m not saying they always make the right decisions. But they fulfill their sworn office dutifully and respectfully.

Perhaps nobody personifies that more than Pat Ivey. I’ve been to hundreds of local government meetings in my life, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched boards and councils vote on issues without discussion. Perhaps worse, I’ve seen councils and boards go around in circles, debating an issue without ever getting down to answering the fundamental questions. I can think of perhaps one issue in the past six months that th eSaline City Council stumbled on (I’m looking at you, Mr. How-do-we-charge-users-of-the-electric-vehicle-charging-station-issue!). When you have a councilor like Ivey at the table, the right questions are usually asked. I typically read through the agenda packet before a meeting and have questions. And on several occasions this year, as discussions developed, Ivey asked and got answers to the questions I had. You can tell a lot about the way people think by the questions they ask, and I quickly identified Ivey as someone who wanted to understand an issue, consider the implications and make a considerate decision.

Saline is fortunate that Ivey isn’t the only elected representative who acts in this manner. No matter how you feel about how the council votes for a motion, it’s difficult to find fault with anyone who articulates their reasoning as well as Ivey.

Just as important is the respect Ivey showed for his office. Whenever Mayor Gretchen Driskell called on him, Ivey thanked her for allowing him to speak. On many contentious issues Ivey was sure to convey, in his soft-spoken manner, his reasoning for his vote.

Call it respect. Call it grace. To me, it always appeared as if Ivey served as if he was genuinely humbled by the privilege.

Ivey isn’t stomping angrily away from the council table. Nobody will be leaving any crude messages on anyone’s Facebook wall as a result. His quiet resignation won’t sell many newspapers or generate a ton of hits on the news websites. But his public service was commendable and noteworthy. I didn’t think it appropriate to let this pass without comment.