District 4 Councilor candidate Simonds reflects on incoming Mayor

From last week's Worcester Magazine:

By councilors’ accounts, Murray put a tremendous amount of time into rounds of daily phone calls and e-mails to make sure everyone was on the same page for a vote, to appease an angry colleague, or to criticize someone who was a little out of line. Lukes, who wasn’t always in Murray’s loop, was not part of the circle, yet must now assume its center. That’s going to take a long daily call list and real attention to colleagues and other constituencies.
On the surface, it wasn’t always visible how much spit and duct tape Murray was using behind the scenes, and it is incumbent on Lukes to continue putting in some of that work.
Of course, Lukes doesn’t romanticize intra-Council harmony to the same degree as some of her fellow councilors. And, making it tougher, her colleagues aren’t going to go out of their way to make it easy on her.
“She has to build consensus. In some way, she has to listen. Not to come in with an agenda, I worry about that. That was one of Murray’s best traits. He listened and he was willing to take different points of views,” says longtime city activist and 2007 District 4 candidate Lynne Simonds. “It’s one thing to be the devil’s advocate. But when you’re the leader, you can’t be.”
Simonds voices the sentiment current pols privately espouse. “She has to have a concentrated effort to build some bridges,” she says. “And she’s going to have to say ‘sorry’ sometimes. In the long run, that’s going to be best for her leadership. And best for the city.”
Does Lukes have a realistic shot of gaining the full support of the Council in the next six months? The energetic campaign for next year’s mayoral election alone will probably make that difficult. However, if she measures her actions and reactions and works overtime behind the scenes to talk to key councilors, she could surprise a lot of people with a smooth-running Council.
Simonds cites some of that behind-the-scenes work that Murray did so well. “It doesn’t mean she can’t be a strong mayor, but she has to be fair. She’s going to have to work a lot harder behind the scenes — talk to committee chairs ... to councilors.”
And, says Simonds, looking forward to November, “She does a good job, that’s the best message she can give to the public.”
Lukes knows that a cohesive Council is critical, and is confident she can pull it together. “I’ve learned to overcome the personality conflicts that occurred because people didn’t agree on the issues,” she says. “To get fixated on that is to be an amateur. [The question is], can the City Council acclimate itself to me?