Nick Jimenez

Luther Jones could teach Leadership 101

With four terms as mayor under his belt, Mayor Emeritus Luther Jones knows something about politics and leadership and the difference between the two. The 33 candidates for City Council who will be on the April 7 ballot could learn something from the old colonel.
   Jones recently celebrated his 85th birthday and may be the most admired ex-politician in the city, something of an accomplishment, considering that a politician who makes tough decisions is always making enemies.
   I was thinking of Jones as the Editorial Board this week continued interviewing City Council candidates.
   Running for a government post such as council must be a grueling task. Candidates put their egos on the line when they put their name on the ballot. They are asking voters to make a judgment on them and their candidacy. Every candidate, whether novice or veteran, goes, or ought to go, with humility before the voters. Isn't democracy wonderful?
   Jones had a sterling background - a banker, and a retired Army colonel and commander of the local helicopter repair depot - the first time he challenged colorful and controversial incumbent Jason Luby in 1975. The smart money was on Jones, but he was soundly defeated.
   That's the first lesson for a candidate, Jones said. "The question that a candidate has to ask himself is this, can I stand to get beat? In an election somebody is going to lose and getting beat is the most depressing experience in your life."
   He asked for a recount "and I gained all of 10 votes," he said, and then roared with laughter.
   Every candidate believes he or she is answering some call from the public to run. Perhaps some personal experience with City Hall prompts the hat to be thrown into the ring - one candidate told us that his candidacy was born the day he almost hit a sofa on the freeway - or maybe extensive civic participation leads to the next step. A candidate has yet to tell me that his or her candidacy is due to blind ambition. There is a limit to candor.
   All want to be leaders - until the tough questions come up. Ask a candidate about, for instance, banning smoking in restaurants, raising the property tax cap, privatizing city services, and more than a few say, "I'll let the people decide."
   This is leadership?
   "(The) 'let the people decide' is a cop-out," Jones said. "You can't know everything about every issue, but you should know something about an issue. We elect people to represent us and to make decisions for us. If we don't like what they do, we just don't vote for them the next time around."
   Jones could have taken the easy way out in 1979 when the hot issue of a statue of Christ in the bay presented itself. A promoter proposed erecting a statue of Christ on a spoil island. Jones said he knew the project was a violation of church-and-state separation; he could have bowed to pressure and let the courts handle it. But, fresh from being elected to his first term, he cast his vote with the 4-to-3 majority to defeat the project. "I'm still proud of that vote," he said.
   Leadership is taking the tough stand even when a roomful of proponents, or opponents, is putting the pressure on.
   "You sit there and listen to the people in front of you. You have people advocating and opposing something," Jones said. "But you as an elected official have the responsibility of representing people who are not there."
   A lot of the candidates who purport to be leaders in the making have a lot to learn from the former mayor. Many of them have a less than a sure grasp on the difference between being a politician and being a political leader.
  

 
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