Day 161

The morning newspaper headline was simple.  “Cops to be honored.”  It listed several of the police officers that were to be honored at a ceremony at City Hall in the following Monday evening.  By noon the mayor realized he had a problem.  People were calling City Hall to thank him for doing it and say they would be attending.  The number of calls made it certain that the City Hall meeting room would not be big enough.  A call to the convention center found it booked on Monday but available on Tuesday.  He polled the council members.  They agreed to an emergency meeting to approve the expenditure. 

Just after lunch two men arrived at City Hall and asked for a meeting with the mayor.  When his secretary stepped in to tell him they were there he put his head down on his desk and groaned.  Individually these two men caused his administration more heartburn than the next five contenders put together.  He felt fortunate that for the last five years they had looked at each other with suspicion if not animosity.  They had spent most of their energy fighting each other.  He knew that if they ever started working together it would be a disaster.  Now they were in his outer office together and from his secretary’s description they were agreeing.  This could only mean they had found a common enemy and the mayor knew he was likely that target.  This could ruin your whole term in office of not your career.  He nodded to the secretary to send them in.  He might as well get this over with.

Hector Cortez came in first followed by Lee Smith the head of the city black caucus.  Hector began, “Mayor Harrison I am pleased that you could meet with us concerning a matter of great concern to the minority community.”  Mayor Harrison closed his eyes.  A headache was starting.  They were invading his office with a common complaint.  The wording ‘minority community’ meant only one thing; they had signed a truce and were joining forces.  Before it was always the ‘black’ or ‘Hispanic’ community.  And this was how Hector always began before he let you have it.  A ‘matter of great concern’ was nothing more than a way of veiling a complaint.