Chapter 26: Functions and Transforms

Some people think that Jesse "The Body" Ventura, former wrestling entertainer, never expected to win the Governorship of Minnesota. The day after the special election, that was the way I felt. Like turning twenty-one, I seemed no different, but my world had changed. For me, trust fund baby, that meant more than for most. Likewise, the day the election was certified, I received a number of things for which I had no immediate use, including an office and a shared clerical person.

I went to inspect the office space. It was exactly what you would expect for a city with significant recent growth—tiny and otherwise inadequate. As usual, I turned things over to Elspeth. My only instruction was to set up virtual meeting capacity, so I could keep office hours from elsewhere. Nashua was the second largest city in New Hampshire, but that was still well under 100,000. In New Jersey, it would rank twelfth. Alderman was a part time job.

That said, I intended to do the job. I took the tour of the records office, learned the scope of my access, noted the schedule of meetings and introduced myself to Claire Jones, the assistant I shared with three other Aldermen. I introduced Elspeth as my personal assistant. We spent a week getting up to speed for the first meeting. Like Manchester, Alderman sessions were recorded (literally taped).

That was OK. I found the old tapes of the sessions very illuminating. The elections of the previous November had been a change of power structures. Donna Lee, the current Mayor was largely stripped of her support. Paul Dean and James Dowd either convinced other Aldermen not to run for re-election or to step down. Following the election, they controlled about two-thirds of the votes.

I was replacing Jane Karon, Dowd supporter, who resigned Ward Seven after winning an at-large position (four years, instead of two). Allan Morton was to be her replacement. I was beginning to wonder how real his medical issues were. In any event, I may have done Dr. Layne a favor. He was in neither camp, which might not have been healthy for his business. I am naturally combative. A good fight might be just the thing to improve my humor.

The Board met twice a month. My first meeting was Tuesday, the week after the election was certified. I attended and abstained from every vote. None was close, so my vote did not matter. During the meeting, I watched the other Aldermen and the reporters. It turned out Luck was with me.

James Dowd took audio notes on his smartphone. I could read about half of what he said. The reporters were even better. They talked among themselves constantly. The Telegraph reporter mumbled along as he keyed his reports. Donna Lee was not attending, but her representative spent most of the meeting on the phone. I could not tell all the issues, but it was easy to pick out the teams. Both sides thought I was on theirs. Hilarious.

I could see the reason for the recent political struggle. The city and county had voter approval for up to $11,000,000 in bond issues and/or federal loans. This was for a clean water system of some kind. The primary contract was spelled out prior to the vote. However, many of the side and sub-contracts had yet to be awarded. Someone had to win the contracts. Dean and Dowd had friend and family interests they wanted to promote, so they had sandbagged Donna Lee. It made me tired, but the political landscape made perfect sense.

The question, as always, was what I wanted to do about it. I could have used my position for leverage in the Beacon Light project, but that was firmly established near Manchester. Cloudrest was still a ways down the road and was outside city limits. Once I examined my motives, the biggest reason to do something was that I dislike bullies. I started by figuring what I could do, because there was no sense in attempting the impossible.

With that ball rolling, I took an extended trip to the Capital. The 18 March legislative session was days away. My presence was urgently requested on several issues. I pressed flesh, drank dreadful coffee, gave scripted answers, asked scripted questions and generally did my trained seal act.

In the process, I scouted which reporters, aides or lobbyists were easiest to eavesdrop. Every night I returned with a load of fresh feedback on the day's events. Since lip reading is not a common skill, my staff was stunned at the level of information I could glean just walking around. The evening before the session, I made the rounds of cocktail parties and such. Into a handful of selected ears, I dropped a few carefully vetted hints. Call them introductory offers.

I should mention my Concord staff. It began with myself and Elspeth, doing parole consultations. We still did a respectable number of those. In the year and a half since we started, my staff had grown to ten people, led by Howard Cockerham, whom I poached from Sean. At that, we were using temp service clerical help.

Through luck or skill, I had a very competent team in Concord. I was doing my best to see that their reputation grew. Judging from the reactions, it worked. All but one of my selected Senators and Representatives returned my contact in the morning. Out of those contacts we received a commission to investigate a wrinkle in Affordable Care Act compliance. I went back out with ACA as my target subject.

Not surprisingly, it was an information rich environment. Whether you call it Obamacare or ACA, its proper name, the law is a patchwork, with no defining plan. Significant compliance areas needed to be clarified. Everyone had an opinion on how. Shortly after lunch I tagged the group that seemed to be leading the charge. I let my people know and they let our clients know. We made nothing but goodwill, in most cases, but goodwill is fertile soil.

After the session wrapped, I had lunch catered in for the office. They had earned it. Their contacts and my few hints were distilled into six new clients, at that point. Privately, I was relieved. I may have been a millionaire, but Concord's overhead was stiff. These clients could get us to the break-even stage before the September session. Once the wheel is turning, it takes much less effort to keep it going.

My next stop was Nashua for the bi-monthly Board of Aldermen meeting. Again I said very little, but kept my eyes open. By the time I went home, I had a glimmering of a plan. Several of Dean and Dowd's pet companies had locked up bids. However, the big prize was against a company from Manchester, who also had local resources to draw on. If I could spoke the wheels of that wagon, I would.

Nashua took only a couple of days. Boston took a couple of weeks. Unlike Concord, I set up the Boston office on the cheap. By the time I arrived, they needed a hundred feet of rope to replace my original shoestring. I rented an actual office and turned the storefront over to the new investigative division. All they needed was someone to answer the phones. The working people would come to you.

We wrapped things up, appropriately enough, on April Fool's Day. I was exhausted. I talked to Sean. He told me I had delegation problems and suggested a Red Sox game. Not having a better idea, I collected everyone that was not nailed down and went to Fenway Park. It was a day game, cold and drizzly, but could have been worse. The Red Sox beat the Tigers, so the small crowd was in a good mood. I cannot say the same about the ballpark food.

After the game, I took everyone to an Irish bar. St. Patrick's green was still up (it might never come down), but otherwise it was an ordinary bar. At least the sandwiches were better. We laughed and talked til about ten PM. Without thinking about it, I noted who drank too much, who talked too loudly, who stayed back and watched everyone else, and who kept order. I did the last call and headed home.

As I did my daily notes, I was reminded of the hundreds of times I did notes while in college and grad school. Like my research notes, these involved what people said, what they merely mouthed and my personal observations. Yet, these were much more personal. Sean was right. I could tell who was the leader from who was the water carrier. What was interesting was the pecking order.

High on the list was someone that did not go to the baseball game. The organization in Boston revolved around Veronica. Every sign pointed to her as the center of activity. She once put a ring in my nose, so perhaps it was no wonder. I decided to make my appreciation more visible. If nothing else, it would reinforce her status as local boss.