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Per Mountain View tradition, the first City Council meeting of the year is a largely ceremonial affair. For the most part, politics take a backseat in lieu of celebrating the year’s accomplishments, and cake is readily dispensed, as are compliments.
For now-former mayor John McAlister, it was also one last chance to display his whimsy from the big seat.
“We’re going to have some fun here,” he said from the council dais. “It’s my last time to do this, and I figured I’m going to drag it out.”
Kicking off the meeting, he taped a printout of his own homemade “mayoral seal” to front of the dais — a hodgepodge insignia including what, in his mind, represented the best of Mountain View: golfing, a golden Labrador retriever, and, since he’s the owner of a Baskin Robbin’s, an ice cream cone. He proceeded to take roll call, giving each council member positions on a prospective basketball team (Councilman Inks was the small forward, Councilman Rosenberg the shooting guard, and McAlister made himself the waterboy).
That levity came at the end of what has been an extremely packed year. Estimating he attended more than 500 meetings in 2015, McAlister recounted a list of regional round-tables, ribbon-cuttings, business forums and coffee chats with constituents. But one of his big priorities as mayor, he said, was to make city politics inclusive and civil, and other members who joined the council last year pointed out that McAlister made them feel welcome from day one.
“You need a team; you can’t do everything yourself,” McAlister said. “People respect the mayor’s position, but you still have to earn their respect.”
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McAlister (or McAllister) is more commonly thought of as Scottish, and in
Ireland are mostly found in Ulster – what we call ‘Scots Irish.’
I like him.
His replacement……not so much.
For those interested, I did a family tree for the now former mayor on Wikitree. You can view his ancestry here:
http://www.wikitree.com/genealogy/McAlister-Family-Tree-457
Councilman McAlister’s ancestors of the same last name are indeed from Inverness, Scotland, arriving in the Virginia in the late 1600s.
McAlister sounds like the typical Irish boy who listened carefully to family dinner table conversations, marked with lots of humor and maybe required civility mixed with passion when discussing “hot” topics. That was the norm in Irish home. 🙂
Well done Johnny boy.