Being the mayor of a city is a humbling experience

If there is one thing we learned from last week’s article about former Mayor Karen Majewski’s reflection on her tenure, it’s this:
Be courageous — despite your initial doubts.
In our question-and-answer interview with Majewski, who was mayor for 16 years, it was enlightening to learn from her that, despite one’s initial fears, we can succeed.
It’s a message most of us have heard before, but it is always enlightening to find out how others deal with this dilemma.
We hope that many of you found some inspiration in her story about her beginning in Hamtramck politics, and her growth into the job as mayor.
It is an awesome task, in the sense that it carries a ton of responsibilities. And, being mayor can be a humbling job.
We say this with all the best wishes for our new mayor, Amer Ghalib, who now leads a new chapter in Hamtramck’s fascinating political history.
Being mayor of your town is, indeed, an honor. A mayor is always celebrated by visiting politicians, because mayors are the folks on the ground level who try to make sense, to their residents of what “government” can and cannot deliver.
We put government in quotes because it’s actually us. We are the government, even though the official government sometimes can seem far away, and out of our reach.
Former Congressman Thomas “Tip” O’Neill Jr. famously said that “all politics is local,” and that is so true. Majewski embodied that sentiment, and so have so many other former mayors.
Politics here is a living and breathing thing.
We can only have faith that the tradition of a being a community-minded mayor will forever live on in Hamtramck.
Posted Feb. 11, 2022