Mayor John

I am not sure where and when they first heard the word Mayor.  Honestly, I think it might have been in the movie Horten Hears a Who.  Now they really enjoy watching Rescue Bots and there is a Mayor on there.  Either way, they asked, what's a Mayor?  So we explained the role of a Mayor and told them who our Mayor is.  They both really wanted to meet him.  When they first asked I didn't think anything of it, I kind of blew it off.  But then they asked me again and asked Jeff too.

Since our town is so small, I was hoping Mayor John would be approachable.  I looked up his email and sent along a note asking for an opportunity to meet.  It never hurts to ask, right?  Mayor John has two jobs, a daytime job at a community college near by and Mayor on his off hours.  He was kind enough to meet us at the end of his day job and show us around.  He even arranged a behind the scenes tour of the police department.

I think Mayor John was just as excited about the police tour as the boys.

I worked with the boys before we left.  We talked about the role of the Mayor again and talked about questions they might want to ask him.  I came up with the question, when did you decide you wanted to be the Mayor?  Peter and I practiced and he executed perfectly.   He's just a little hard to understand so I translated for him.  Mayor John said it was in 1998.  So he's been serving our city for quite a while now.  He even has the honor of being the poop scooper in the 4th of July parade.  I guess it's city tradition.

But he and the city council have done great things for our town.  We have an amazing park system and it's still expanding.  He showed us the plans for the new soccer fields to go in down by the new boat launch.  Might even be in by this summer!  They have brought new jobs to Independence with a company coming soon to add, I believe they said 300 new jobs.  They also worked to bring in a high end apartment complex that is right by where the new soccer fields are going in.

Peter got a chance to sit in the Mayor's seat.

Now Lachlan's turn.

Here they are waiting for something special from Mayor John.

Independence was voted an All-American City in 2014.  What an honor and it is well deserved.  We are a cool little town.  If you haven't come to visit, you should! 



This video shows Lachlan and Peter receiving official police badges and official city pins, including the All-American City pin.  What a special honor!

They even received an Officer Indy to take with them on their adventures.  We are suppose to take pictures of Officer Indy at the park or the zoo or where ever we go and post them on their Facebook page so we can see the places he's been. 

This morning when I got Lachlan dressed I purposefully picked out a collared shirt so I could put his special pins on.  When I asked if I could take his picture this is the pose I got.  Hands behind his back, chin up, eyes squinted and stern.  He is an important person after all, the Mayor said so.