Cindy Mallette: On the Scene

By CINDY MALLETTE
Staff Writer

On Wednesday, Mayor Joey Seeber presided over his last City Council meeting.

I couldn’t go, but my co-worker, Adam Russell, was there and he wrote a great article that really captured Seeber’s relationship with his fellow council members.

Adam wrote about one moment in the meeting when business was interrupted by a loud standing ovation in the mayor’s honor, and Seeber grabbed a gavel and pounded it on his desk.

“I’m still in charge here,” he said, laughing.

The meeting was lighthearted, yet marked by poignant statements from each council member about their time working with the mayor.

“Over the years, I have tried to listen and learn, and he’s been a phenomenal inspiration to me to see how the city operates and how to make decisions here,” said Mayor Pro Tem Chris Simons. “The citizens are totally grateful to have a man of this caliber leading the city.”

Seeber’s ability to build good relationships with the council, the city staff, and with residents, I think, is probably the greatest characteristic that enabled him to have such a successful term of office.

He and the council tackled huge projects during the past six years and even more in the six years before, when Seeber was a council member under Kevin Eltife’s leadership. Seeber was on the City Council when it approved the Tyler Blueprint, the half-cent sales tax and the pay-as-you-go system of funding capital improvements projects.

Seeber followed in Eltife’s stead and oversaw the elimination of general obligation debt, lower property tax rates and balanced spending on the part of the city. His biggest accomplishment as mayor was probably the Tyler 21 Plan, which used a huge amount of public input to outline a plan for the city’s future.

If you’ve ever been a team captain, chair of a planning committee or leader of a volunteer group, then you probably have a microcosmic understanding of what the mayor of a city the size of Tyler does for a (non-paying, full-time) job.

At the Salute to Seeber a few weeks ago, we got a peek into the mayor’s life: days filled with meetings; people who wanted him to fix their plumbing, their streets, their neighbor’s barking dog; emergencies that required immediate action and long hours; missed family time. Through all of this, each person who spoke at the Salute recounted the same image of Seeber: calm, focused, dedicated and caring.

I’ve only covered the city of Tyler since February, but I’ve watched Seeber closely. As a journalist, I try to understand the motives and character of the people in my beat. I ask myself, “What is this person trying to communicate to me, and why?”

Usually, it’s clear when someone’s trying to manipulate me to put a positive spin on a story. I never got that from Seeber, even though I looked for it.

I’ve covered so many good-news stories about the city in four months: success of the half-cent sales tax, new downtown developments, implementation of Tyler 21 projects, elimination of the general obligation debt, low taxes. I thought to myself, “Either the city is really doing well, or the council has a great PR machine.”

I’m not going to write off my duty as a journalist to be unbiased, but I can say with confidence, the city is doing well.

That fact was clear in the recent mayor’s race. Both Barbara Bass and Laura Corbett campaigned on a platform of continuing Seeber’s and the council’s work. They believed strongly that the city is headed in the right direction; the trouble for the candidates came in figuring out who would most, or best, continue down that path.

Ms. Bass’ vision spoke clearest to the residents of Tyler, and they elected her to step into Seeber’s boots.

I believe Ms. Bass can do a good job with the city. I don’t know her outside of the context of her campaign for mayor. I know her work experience, the church she attends, her volunteer activities. She’s clearly a driven, compassionate and focused person.

Ms. Bass has a bit of an uphill battle right out of the gate: one week before the election, five of the six City Council members endorsed her opponent. But she’s acknowledged the politics at work in that decision, and she says she’s confident that she will be able to work with the council in a similar way as Seeber did.

“It’s just part of politics,” she said. “That was something they did and they felt passionate about. We will work together because we’re all here for the right reason: We love Tyler.”

I believe her. And I’ll follow her leadership of the council as closely as I followed Seeber’s. I hope to track just as much success under her management as Seeber enjoyed.

Cindy Mallette
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