Alderperson Kyle Lobner’s Farewell Speech – “I am very excited to be taking a step back from public life for a little while, but I’m not going anywhere”

I’m a bit behind on this, but I did want to post the video of Alderperson Kyle Lobner’s farewell speech. It’s relevent obviously because he’s served a long time on the Council and put a great deal of thought into his speech. It’s also relevent in light of the Library project which it sounds to me like he obliquely references during the section of his speech where he urges Appleton to keep moving forward.

Alderperson Kyle Lobner (District 13): Thank you, Chair, and thank you to Alderperson Otis for that reminder about the Flag Day Parade. I’ll get the Council application in on my way out the door. To address the elephant in the room, barring a change in a recount within the next week or so this is also my last Council meeting, and I do have faith in the folk that administer and the machines that count our elections and so I am treating this as my last Council meeting unless I hear otherwise. And a few of you have heard me tell this story before and so my apologies if you’re hearing it again. I started to think about what farewell remarks to this Council might sound like about six months into my first term on Council, seven and half years ago. And I wrote a farewell remark that was ended abruptly when I was interrupted eaten by a giant fish. And that was the best draft of the speech, but it turns out that it’s really difficult to book a giant fish on short notice. So instead of me being eaten by a giant fish today, you’ll have to settle for plan B which was my sincere gratitude. I come from an area where town board meetings generally only draw much notice when somebody punches somebody, which actually happens more than you’d think. And so I’ve been amazed by the culture around city government here in Appleton. I knew about it before I started, but it remains a point of pride for me. It starts at the top with mayors Hanna and Woodford, but it continues on down to Directors and to colleagues. A year ago when my basement flooded the very first two people who came to help me were a former colleague and a director–people I know through city work. And it’s such a point of pride to me that we have such great people that we’ve worked with. We debate high stakes topics here all the time, but when it’s over we care about each other, and I’ve never had another job where we work under that much pressure and when we’re done we get along. I continue to be blown away day in and day out by the capacity of our staff. We don’t talk about it enough. Whether it’s going the extra mile, finding a way to innovate, responding to challenges in creative ways. I can’t imagine how difficult this job would be without our directors and the work that they do to put us in a position to make good decisions. So as I leave tonight, I have two requests for everybody. The first one–we talked a little bit about the culture around this job. Please don’t let that go away. A big part of the reasons why our local government is succeeding while the state and federal levels unravel is the fact that we treat each other with respect here and we collaborate when we can. Even in the cases of some of the former colleagues I shudder to think about, we still cared about each other, we still worked together when we could, and we didn’t let it become personal. Even on the nights when I thought it might come to blows on the Council floor, when it was done it was done and we got along again. The other thing is to keep Appleton moving forward. Throughout the duration of my time here on Council, Appleton has been on lists all the time of best places to live, best places to work, best places to raise a family. And every community on that list is about to face a choice. Do they respond to the year that we’ve had and the disasters that we’ve experienced by halting their momentum? Or do they keep moving? The communities that keep going are going to get all kinds of complaints. They’re gonna hear that they’re not ready for this. They’re gonna hear that they’re still hurting. They’re gonna hear that they can’t afford it. But our community needs aren’t going to wait until we feel like we’re ready to start meeting them. The places people want to live a decade from now. The places that are on all those great place lists a decade from now, will be the places that kept moving–not the ones that fell behind. So with all of that said, I am very excited to be taking a step back from public life for a little while, but I’m not going anywhere. And so if folks have questions for me–things I can help out with–I’m still here; I’m still happy to help. But in the meantime, it’s been an honor and a privilege to serve these last 8 years and I’m looking forward to what comes next.