Murray tries to connect people
Published 6:08 pm Thursday, November 1, 2007
By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
When Darron Murray thinks of "politics," state representative or higher offices come to mind.
Not non-partisan Dowagiac City Council, which he regards as a way to connect people.
"I like to help," says Murray, seeking his third four-year term Tuesday against Howard Hall. "I'm called because someone has water standing in their driveway. That doesn't have anything to do with Democrat-Republican."
Murray grew up in Dowagiac on Ashland Street and graduated from Union High School in 1989.
He knows from his own life that each connection, each experience, broadens his perspective and opens new doors, like a year and a half ago getting involved with the Dogwood Fine Arts Festival.
"It's weird," he said Wednesday. I've been here all my life, I've been on the council six years and I get in Dogwood and here I meet all these people I have no idea who they even are. I try to connect other people.
"When people complain to me, I encourage them to come before City Council. I want people to do that so they can see that the council is not monsters – even though it may be portrayed like that by some people. People I have talked to who have done it, here's this (new) group of people" to which they are exposed and begin to build relationships.
"I didn't know who (Mayor Don Lyons) was until my first night sitting in front of the dais," he said Wednesday, "so I want the same for other people who would normally not meet. (Lyons) is sharp. He obviously knows what he's doing and how to run a business. But the mayor hasn't shown me that he's the kind of person who says, 'Don't worry about any of it, I'll take care of all of it.' He doesn't do that or say, 'This is the way it should be,' even in closed sessions."
"It might surprise you what I dislike most about Howard Hall – his approach. He has good ideas and we've done some, like the (utility bill winter payment extension). He brought that up last year and we took it and this year added to it. The city is not unapproachable. I try to dispel that any time I have the opportunity by bringing actual people to the city."
"Over the last eight years, we've gotten some pretty cool things done," Murray said.
He doesn't elaborate, but he could be talking about exchanging Central Middle School for the Donald Lyons Health Center as a companion piece to the Borgess Lee-Memorial Hospital emergency room expansion, Eagle's Wood and Eagle's Trace apartments, Forest Glen Assisted Living, Pamida in 2000 and AmeriHost (now Baytown) in 2001.
Murray envisions the next stage as a "family recreation" complex.
"I'd like to see everything in one place, and it doesn't just have to be baseball, football and soccer," as was attempted when Dowagiac sought a state grant for Russom Field.
"You could go there on a Saturday just because it was nice out. There would be a walking track and bike trail, so grandma could go, too. As for what else would be there, I'd have to recruit some people to tell me what they wanted, like I did with Ward Park."
"It's time to do some more of that," whether it's a new fire station or public safety building, a recreational complex or the creek trail through the community, Murray said. "It's more difficult when you've got places closing and we're getting less money, but what we're not doing, and I appreciate that, is, 'We can't do it because we don't have the money.' What we are saying is, 'Here are these difficult things we want to do, there's got to be a way we can do it," just as a determined group of volunteers established Dogwood in a town of 6,000.
He lists family recreation and First Ward infrastructure as his two chief priorities in a new term.
"Third, we've got to keep pounding on our drug problem. I'm comfortable that those are things we can do," he said.
During his 13-year career with Contech, Murray started at the Dowagiac plant north of town and works there today in continuous engineering improvement to the die-cast process that injects metal for one of 16 different types of automotive parts.
In between, he spent 2 1/2 years at a former facility in Mishawaka, Ind.
Murray, who earned two associate degrees at Southwestern Michigan College, started out studying accounting. "I started working (at Contech) as a temporary punch press operator," he said. "I took some engineering classes at Western Michigan University," but for the past year and a half has been working toward a Bethel College organizational management degree through SMC.
Murray, 36, of 201 Grove St., is married and has two sons and a daughter. His wife, Carla (Morrow) works in information services at the Cass County courthouse.
"Our kids are terribly busy," says Murray, between football, soccer, which he coached, baseball and dance.
"You really don't want the city raising your kids," he said.
But recreation programs are contained in the 1964 charter, as is a requirement that the city manager reside in town, although state law prohibits residency requirements.
"I'll answer (the charter) question this way," Murray said. "Timing is everything. I don't think the best time to reopen the charter is when you need to make a decision on something that's in the charter and forcing a decision. I think it needs to be updated, but for me, there is bigger stuff out there than the charter. For me the biggest political bombshell is changing the charter about residency for the city manager when we don't have one.
As for First Ward candidate Bob Mortimore's desire to reopen the charter to insert partisan offices and eight-year term limits, "If Dowagiac becomes partisan, there's no way I'd run. That's an easy way for me to get out. When it comes to local stuff, it's bad enough already," he said.
"I've got to say jobs are the biggest issue right now," Murray said, "but people don't understand how difficult it is for the city to recruit. The best things we can do is the things that we've done, and that's to have the industrial park and the commercial center ready.
"To keep making them viable is the best thing we can do right now because everybody's competing even harder. With less money coming in from the state, we still have to put our investments in those two places. I can't blame people for wanting results. They should want results, but it sure is hard in Michigan right now. Manufacturing is going outside the U.S. and everything is scrunching down."
His employer, Contech, is a good example.
"Why are we doing good?" Murray asks. "Because another part of it is that there are other plants closing, including Mishawaka, where I worked. Dowagiac got a new part because a whole plant closed."
His second term on council "has been more difficult because we've not been able to do as much" due to the economy, Murray said, but he gets frustrated when foes characterize First Ward accomplishments as non-existent.
"Lowe Street, getting the bridge done, that was a huge project," he said. "That cost over $1 million. Walter Ward Park is big, too, and it's beautiful compared to what it used to look like. I don't play basketball, but people who come from other communities say it's got a great court. We've still got issues. We still need sidewalks and curbs in First Ward, but it's a whole lot better by a long shot. I'd like to see the street sweeper. I was probably a teenager before I saw a street sweeper because our street didn't have curbs."
"Another big thing that's been done that doesn't get a lot of play – but it's a noticeable difference," Murray said, "and that's drugs" through the joint efforts of an enforcement team in which the city cooperates with the Cass County Sheriff's Office, funded by a millage voters approved.
Murray says the council's critics stoke the perception that the city is secretive.
"They like to holler that we don't talk in front of everybody," he said. "They're not really looking for us to talk, they're looking for us to argue. We have differences of opinion, but we don't argue about it. If there's something I'm uncomfortable with, I can talk to (Third Ward Councilman Leon) Laylin about it," as they did about issue of the parking lot proposed for the Clark lot on the corner of Main Street and Pennsylvania Avenue by the Wolverine Building school administrative offices.
It was that 5-1 vote, in fact, to which Murray alluded figuratively in a letter to the editor as getting "clobbered."
He meant the size of the margin, not that his colleagues told him to vote a certain way or retaliated when he didn't.
"I thought we should spend the grant," he said. "It was basically going to cost about $70,000 and the grant was for two-thirds of that. I thought we should put the 20 grand with it and do a nice parking lot. Everybody else wanted to put the stuff over it that's there right now for 3 grand and, hopefully, somebody will buy it and put a building there. We didn't see eye to eye. It wasn't that big of a deal, but please clarify that because I should have explained 'clobbered' better. Some people took it literally, and that was my fault."
"I respectfully voted no," Murray said. "They want us to go at each other and we don't do that. It doesn't mean we always agree. The other part of that is we are prepared when we get there" from digesting a packet full of material prepared by the staff with administrative recommendations.
"Just because that's what the city manager wants to do doesn't mean that's what's going to happen. If there's something I don't understand, I'll call," Murray said. "If there's something that doesn't sound right, I'll find out. I do my best to be prepared before I go to the meeting. I haven't been discouraged from discussing things and I'm not trying to discourage public input. If I have a difference of opinion, I talk to the guy. If it still doesn't match up, then I vote differently."
Murray credits his wife's uncle, the late Chester Payne, with encouraging him to apply for a council appointment he didn't get on his first try.
The council instead selected Jack Alexander to succeed Amos Clark. Alexander was elected that Nov. 2 to the balance of the term with 86 votes and no opposition.
Murray was subsequently appointed to the city Planning Commission in April and to the new housing commission citizen review subcommittee.
Retired police captain Paul Holloway, the First Ward incumbent in Murray's first bid, was elected to council in 1995 and had filed for a second four-year term in 1999 to keep his options open.
The two men didn't know each other well previously, but once Holloway met briefly with Murray, he stopped campaigning in October and threw him his support. Holloway's name was already on the ballot by then, however, and he garnered 46 votes to Murray's 82.
In 2003, 28 percent of Dowagiac voters buried the rental inspection ordinance a better than 3-1 margin, but didn't extend that wrath to City Council members.
All three incumbents were re-elected, even though the ordinance implemented June 1 was repealed, 765-244.
In that election four years ago, Murray defeated challenger Arthur Jackson, 188-94, to clinch his second four-year term.
Murray and Second Ward Councilman Bob B. Schuur had opposed the controversial ordinance in a 4-2 vote April 28.
Mayor Pro Tem Wayne Comstock, second in seniority to Schuur, won his fifth term since 1987, 251-209, over challenger Edward Clark Cobb in Second Ward. Comstock supported the ordinance.
Third Ward Councilman Dr. Charles Burling, appointed Sept. 8 to fill the vacancy created by Tom Zablocki's resignation, retained the seat by outpolling challenger Jo Anne Wood, 137-107.
Burling joined the council after the vote was taken on the ordinance, but spoke in favor of it while campaigning.
"I do get a lot of feedback, but not a lot of criticism" from constituents. "The majority of the criticism I get is from two or three people," Murray said. "There would be a little more excitement (for Tuesday's election) if there was opposition in Second and Third Ward."
Murray looks at the rental inspection ordinance chapter in city election history as indicative of "the way politics truly works in Dowagiac – and it's a good thing. The rental ordinance was awful. I honestly think it's the right thing to do, even though I voted no. I voted no because the costs for some would be too high."
"There were three incumbents on that ballot with that terribly unpopular ordinance," Murray said. "It went down in a ball of fire, but it's important to know that in using that avenue to push us off the council, that's not what the city did. Despite all the screaming, hollering and bickering about how the City Council is a bunch of bums," voters "tore up that freaking rental ordinance but voted everybody back in. Based on some of the comments, there ought to be 15 people in this ward (seeking his seat) because of 'all the problems we've got.' "