Shining star of civility
I met Ed Lee years before we served together as City Hall officials. He was the go-to guy when you needed to get something done in the byzantine city bureaucracy — the guy who would deliver results quietly, with a smile and without ego. These were qualities I looked for in a political partner — qualities we yearn for in our public servants.
Yet Lee’s management style was in marked contrast to the political culture he worked in at the time.
When I was first elected to City Hall, it was famous for bomb-throwing, temper tantrums and insults. I’ve often described San Francisco politics as a series of knife fights in a phone booth — a phone booth with little actual distance between the left, the left-left and the far-left, and where every policy disagreement had to be politically violent.
As we grieve the passing of our mayor, I realize that what I will miss the most is his civility.
His sense of humor, with corny, often cringe-worthy jokes that would take the edge off a tense room.
His ribbing me for not having children, and then his parenting advice after my son was born.
How he would prod many of us to play pingpong, reminding us that pingpong diplomacy thaws chilly political relationships.
It was a special moment in our city’s history when Ed Lee broke the bamboo ceiling to become our first Chinese American mayor. But one of my favorite memories of him was when, during his first month in office, we visited the suddenly homeless survivors of a Chinatown fire. I saw how the tenants were touched not just because he was a mayor who shared an immigrant background but also by his kindness, his empathy, his decency.
When I reflect on Mayor Lee, I fervently hope that the qualities he nurtured in our civic life will continue. Our collective commitment to political civility would be an appropriate way to honor his legacy.