Former mayor reflects on her years of service

Karen Majewski

By Alan Madlane
Karen Majewski served the city of Hamtramck for 18 years, first as a city council president, and then16 years as mayor.
As such, she accrued an insider’s knowledge of the workings of this city that can scarcely be matched.
She lost her re-election bid last November, and we recently caught up with her to talk about her experiences.

The Review: Many in Hamtramck are probably somewhat familiar with at least some of the elements of your backstory – but then, there are probably also many who are not.
Could you fill our readers in, just briefly, on the formative years that led up to your first taking office in the city, as a councilperson? Had you been in any type of governance situation prior to that?

Karen Majewski: I started public service in Hamtramck as an appointee to the Historical Commission, around 2001 or 2002, I think. I had already finished my Ph.D. at U-M and was doing historical research and publishing, so that was a good fit.
Then, I was asked to run for city council in 2003, as a member of the Solidarity slate. I often tell the story of how Scott Klein caught up with me (by chance) at Urban Break, one of Hamtramck’s early coffee houses.
He told me that the Solidarity slate needed one more candidate by the filing deadline the next day, and that they were looking for a well-educated woman with a Polish last name.
I don’t know how many saner women had already turned them down by that late date, but I met with the other candidates that afternoon and agreed to run, with deep misgivings. My husband was out of town, or he would have told me what I already knew — that only a crazy person would jump into that mess.
Hamtramck politics were especially toxic at that time — what we see nowadays is so tame, in comparison. But I felt like I couldn’t let these folks down. Then I went home and threw myself on the bed and cried my eyes out. I liked my life as it was, and I knew it would never be the same.

The Review: What was it first like in office?

Majewski: I lived half a block over on the Detroit side until 1998, when we bought our home in Hamtramck. I ran for office for the first time in 2003.
In that election of 2003, I received the most votes out of all the council candidates. Under the old charter then, in effect, that automatically made me city council president, to take office in January 2004.
Under the old charter, council consisted of five members, rather than today’s six. The mayor, at the time, had no role in council, and didn’t even attend council meetings. It was the council president who ran the meetings (and also voted, as any other council person).
But, earlier in 2003, one of the five other council members had resigned, and the politically divided council couldn’t agree on a replacement, which they were required to do under the old charter. As a result, votes often resulted in a 2-2 stalemate.
Since I had won the November 2003 election so resoundingly, both council factions actually agreed to appoint me to fill the remainder of that vacant term.
So, technically, I took office as an appointee, not as council president, for the rest of 2003. I was grateful for that experience, short as it was, under council president Kathy Kristy, before actually having to run meetings as city council president starting in January 2004.

The Review: Once a member of council, you quickly turned your attention to the mayor position. What’s the story behind that decision — to kind of “shift gears” a little bit?

Karen Majewski was the mayor of Hamtramck for 16 years. She lost her bid for re-election in November. Photo supplied by Karen Majewski

Majewski: Although the entire Solidarity slate of council candidates won election in 2003 — I look back in wonder at that brief time of working with an aligned council — Mayor (Gary) Zych, who was part of our slate, lost his re-election bid.
Tom Jankowski became mayor. Mayor Jankowski and council were at odds over most issues, and events happened in and out of city hall that convinced me that the city needed a different representative.
I had shepherded the city through the “Call to Prayer” issue at the very beginning of my term in 2004, learned a lot, became more publicly known, and developed good working relationships with people across ethnic, racial, and political lines.
So, when I looked around, I didn’t see anyone else on the horizon who I thought could beat Mayor Jankowski. It looked like I was the one with the best chance, so I agreed to run.

The Review: How did your transition into the mayor’s office from Tom Jankowski’s prior stint go? Would you describe it as smooth and easy, or less so?

Majewski: I don’t really recall any “transition,” smooth or rocky. Tom may remember things differently, but we didn’t work together at all to navigate the change in leadership.
Years later, when he served on council, we worked well together, and we have a good relationship to this day. But things were quite different in 2005.

The Review: Was there anything about the job that caught you by surprise, or was it pretty much exactly as you had envisioned it, or what you expected it to be?

Majewski: Since I’d been city council president under the old charter, when the role was different than that of mayor pro tem under the current charter, I was prepared for some parts of the job — for being the spokesperson regarding council decisions, for instance, and for running council meetings.
What gives me a lot of thought — and cause for self-examination — about being a mayor isn’t so much the mechanics of the job, but rather the way you’re perceived in that role; what expectations people have of you, what needs they want you to fulfill, what power you have to help them — not just with concrete problems, but in terms of the subtler need to feel validated and valued and recognized.
And then, of course, there’s the way people use you to further their own ends, which isn’t necessarily bad but is kind of tacitly understood (but unspoken).
It’s really been an inner, or spiritual, journey in ways that I continue to work out. I expected that once I left office, it might be hard for me to disengage from a role that had defined my identity in so many ways for so long. But, so far, it’s been surprisingly easy — and liberating.

The Review: Do any city-related relationships from your duration of service stick out to you, for better or worse? Is there anyone who’s since left their city position that you still maintain contact with?

Majewski: An invaluable lesson I’ve learned is that people you perceive as “opponents” or even “enemies” may well turn out to be, not just colleagues, but valued friends further down the road.
I can think of a few, and I’m grateful that they were willing to give me another chance — just as I did them.
Of course, I value the lasting friendship of the Solidarity slate officials with whom I served — especially Scott Klein and Shahab Ahmed — as well as some of my other elected colleagues through the years. I miss a few who have passed, like Rob Cedar, Titus Walters, and Al Shulgon.
Then there are some folks who ended up being less than honorable. Hamtramck politics has a lot of skeletons in the closet — where they should remain, for at least a few more generations. …
As for those who’ve left, I still keep in touch with a few. Nevrus Nazarko, our former income tax director, is one. We worked so hard during some really bleak economic times, made multiple trips to Lansing together to try to work things out with the state, and, once he left Hamtramck, he continued his career of public service.
Erik Tungate is another. Unfortunately, Hamtramck let him slip away as our Community and Economic Development Director, and now he’s doing great things as city manager of Oak Park, probably with a lot fewer headaches.

The Review: Was there anyone special whose advice you really valued or took to heart, or who made your job substantially easier than it might have been?

Majewski: Our current city manager, Kathy Angerer, used her experience in state government to help me navigate some of the more difficult issues, when it came to dealing with the press and with council. She made sure I got a heads-up so I wasn’t blindsided when a situation was about to go south. I didn’t always take her advice, but I always took her opinion to heart.

The Review: What do you consider some of your accomplishments or achievements from your time in office? What are you most proud of?

Majewski: I believe I helped lay the groundwork for Hamtramck as it’s now perceived worldwide — as a place where immigrants from around the world, as well as people whose families have been here for generations, come together to create community. With all the opportunity for conflict and resolution that comes with real human life.
That’s been my message from the beginning, and it’s the way Hamtramck’s story is now generally told.
I’m also very proud of having helped create the Hamtramck Historical Museum. Under Gov. Granholm’s “Cities of Promise” program, which, for several years, funneled state resources and expertise to the handful of poorest cities in Michigan, we had the opportunity to get a lot of work done.
Every participant city also had to designate a “signature project,” and I proposed a historical museum as Hamtramck’s. Out of all the cities in the program, as far as I know, Hamtramck is the only one in which the signature project was actually fulfilled, thanks to the many people and organizations who agreed it was worthwhile, and who put their backs and their bucks into making it happen.
On a related note, I’m so happy we were able to save Hamtramck Disneyland after the death of artist Dmytro Szylak. I worked on that for some time — in a race against time — trying to find people or organizations who both had the resources, and agreed on the need to make sure the installations weren’t demolished.
In the end, the right people made the right connections, for which I’m so grateful, but it was touch and go for a while.
I also feel good about being a positive role model for young women. If we value the idea of having people in positions of power who “look like us,” we’d better remember that more than half of “us” are women. Then look around.

The Review: What were some of the challenges that couldn’t be mastered, if any, or that vexed you the most throughout your terms?

Majewski: It’s incredibly frustrating that, as close as we’ve come over the years, we’ve still not managed to fulfill the terms of the R-31 lawsuit. Doctoral dissertations should be written about this, once the last houses are finally done. We’ve built, or renovated, something like 198 houses, and the reasons why those last two still elude us have nothing to do with the city’s efforts. Enough said.
In general, throughout my tenure, it seemed as though as soon as Hamtramck would start to get a little ahead, the universe would set us back — strikes, floods, closures. The recession was especially brutal.
The bitterest experience was the defeat of the Human Rights Ordinance in 2009. Community and religious leaders, including the pastor of my own church, who should have championed equal treatment for all residents — especially our most vulnerable — instead took the cowards’ way out. Either that, or the bigots’ way. Or the opportunists’.
I don’t know which, in the end, is worse. It was disgraceful.
And don’t get me started on emergency management. The way Hamtramck was handled by both of its state-appointed managers was a disgrace, and another of those stories that requires a long telling.
Our assets were ignored, or sold out from under us; our residents and elected officials and our very identity were disrespected, and, in the end, any short-term financial “stability” was achieved by disingenuous and cynical sleight of hand that had no possibility of sustainability, but that left city officials looking like the ones who had failed, rather than the state lackeys who set us up for that failure
And that’s holding my punches.

The Review: What do see for the future, both short- and long-term, for Hamtramck? Do you think that those of the Muslim faith will continue to be the dominant force here politically for a long time, now that they’ve fully assumed power, or do you see that as more of just another part of the ebb and flow of a city’s growth or change?
Do you foresee any major changes coming to the city on the new regime’s early watch?

Majewski: I think Hamtramck will continue to attract new immigrants, as well as folks of all backgrounds who value densely-populated and diverse urban communities like ours.
And, as a student of immigration, I see the same basic patterns of settlement, the same internal issues within groups, and comparable cross-cultural challenges at work — whether we’re talking about the 1910s, or the 2020s.
But, how long any group is dominant here, and who the next wave of immigrants will be, will depend (at least in part) on political and economic circumstances, locally and worldwide.
I’d also caution, as I have over and over, against thinking about Muslims in monolithic terms. If anything, living in Hamtramck should make us all sensitive to cultural, ethnic, and generational differences within, and between those groups that might happen to share any religious faith.

The Review: Do you anticipate yourself being politically, culturally or societally active in any way in the near future? Or will you take some time to rest, or gather your thoughts, or “plot” your next move?

Majewski: There is no such thing as rest.
I am busier than ever, but grateful that I now get to choose where to focus my time and energy. I am back on the board of the Polish American Historical Association, and doing research and writing.
In fact, I’ve completed two articles for publication, both of them focused on Hamtramck. One has already come out, and the other should be published later this year. I’ve also been taking part in academic conference sessions. There will be much more of this.
I’m also re-focusing on my business, Tekla Vintage, which had to take a back seat for much of 2021 during the campaign.
I’m planning on remodeling the store, and making other changes to the business. Dealing in cool old stuff has always been part of my life, and I am getting back to that in both the world of academics and of business. So, I wake up happy.
And, finally, I don’t want to get in the way of the new administration. Mayor Ghalib and I established a good working relationship during the transition period, and I will help in any way if asked, but I respect council and the mayor’s role, which is no longer my own.

The Review: Feel free to weigh in with your thoughts on any of these local hot-button issues: the potential annexation of Hamtramck into Detroit; the elimination of Hamtramck’s police and/or fire departments, in favor of another system of maintaining safety and order in the city; the future of the city’s marijuana dispensaries and LGBTQ+ rights; the new parking meter system (one in Royal Oak by the same company is exceedingly unpopular, apparently); speed humps versus other ways to get people to slow down and drive better; the budget.

Majewski: This will be a lightning round: it may shock your readers to hear me say this, but if there were a way for Hamtramck to maintain some element of autonomy and identity within Detroit, or some other supra-regional jurisdiction, I might be able to support annexation that also guaranteed financial stability and a solution to our infrastructure issues.
Hamtramck needs localized police and fire departments, but as I’ve said before, I am open as to how they might be organized to provide the service we need in a way that’s affordable and sustainable.
Marijuana dispensaries aren’t going away — any council that tried to get rid of them would be committing legal and economic suicide. I hope that LGBTQ+ rights will be codified at the state and federal level, but just as with marijuana dispensaries, attacking human rights would go against the tide of history, and doom Hamtramck as a backwater.
I actually like the new parking meters, but have said all along that the details need tweaking in terms of hours, cost of tickets, and accommodations for businesses and residents. I use the app, and it’s super easy.
The speed humps seem to work well, and I’d like to see them expanded, but they aren’t the only solution to our reckless driving and speeding problems.
And, as for the budget, the problems are systemic, and without overall changes in how cities are funded, and a coordinated focus at the state and national level on urban infrastructure, there is no way out for traditional urban core cities like Hamtramck.

(Majewski’s store, Tekla Vintage, is located at 9600 Jos. Campau Ave,)
Posted Feb. 4, 2022