In 1966 Portland's city councilors were collectively remarkable for their years of service, their longevity, and their uniformity. The five white men on the commission included Mayor Terry Schrunk, age 53, who was midway through his third term, Mark A. "Buck" Grayson, age 58, who was about to start his third term, and Stan Earl, age 56, who was midway through his fourth term. Commissioner Bill Bowes, age 71, was in his seventh full term - he had been in office since before the Second World War -- but he was not the oldest or most senior commissioner: those honors belonged to Ormond Bean, a venerable 80 years old, who had first joined the council in 1933.
Nothing lasts forever. In the following six years the council turned over completely. Mr. Bean did not run in 1966, Mr. Grayson did not run in 1970, Messrs. Bowes and Earl died in office in 1970 a few months apart, and Mayor Schrunk decided, under some political pressure, not to stand for re-election in 1972. By January 1973 not a single councilor from 1966 was still in office.
The first of the five replacements won Ormond Bean's seat in the 1966 election. He was a 42-year-old staffer in the mayor's office with a master's degree in education and a professional background as a public school teacher and principal, named Francis J. Ivancie.
Mr. Ivancie, who died last week at 94, is remembered by Portlanders below a certain age mainly for his one term (1981-1984) as mayor of our fair city, when he was a staunchly conservative and not particularly intellectual defender of the establishment. His conservative politics contrasted sharply with the liberal views of three other councilors. (No one was ever really sure what Mildred Schwab thought about any issue until she actually voted on it.) Fifteen years earlier his views contrasted almost as sharply with those of the rest of the council, except that Frank Ivancie was then the lone liberal on the council.
Governing the city has changed since Mr. Ivancie was in office. We expect our politicians to be scintillating public speakers but also to say nothing that gives offense to anyone. We expect our politicians to be fast and decisive, but also to build consensus among a long list of unions, neighborhood associations, civic leagues, and people-about-city-hall before they do anything. Perhaps most difficult for the modern politicians to accomplish, we expect them to budget money instantly for the crisis of the moment, and then complain when they try to raise money to pay for what we have demanded. (Think of potholes, bridges, congestion, and gasoline taxes.)
If Frank Ivancie was troubled by those conflicts, he did not show it. Charming and perceptive in small groups, he never seriously tried to learn the skills of oratory or to master public speaking. He was always willing to listen to the civic-minded, and quick to correct them if they thought that they were giving him not suggestions but instructions. And he was consummately interested in keeping the budget balanced. Sometimes that was through revenue (he arranged for a small hydroelectric powerhouse to be built at one of the Bull Run dams to produce electricity for sale), sometimes through promotion (in 1983 he had the Water Bureau bottle and sell Bull Run Water, far ahead of the bottled-water fad), and sometimes through cost control (he pushed the Portland Building through as a fixed-price design-build job and then held the line on requests for budget-busting change orders). Sometimes it was through raising federal funds: when Interstate 205 was built past the city's Rocky Butte Jail he argued that the freeway passed too close to the jail for safety and advocated for the federal government to reimburse Portland for the cost to build a new jail. When the money had safely arrived he and others then tried to persuade the federal government that the city could use the old jail a little while longer and put the federal money to a different purpose. (The feds didn't bite.)
The city government did not always look as if it was working well in the Ivancie administration, but in general it did. Roads were paved, water was delivered, projects were built on time and on budget, and the daily business of government got done without much fuss. Mr. Ivancie thought those accomplishments so unremarkable that in his 1984 campaign for re-election he didn't bother to pass out lawn signs or do much advertising. Dignified in his personal appearance, he rarely stood on ceremony, and was more content to unwind after a day's work with some beer and music at the Euphoria Tavern than in the houses and private clubs of the rich. His most prominent campaign tag line from his earlier city council races was the relatively modest "I'm Proud of Portland - Frank Ivancie for City Council." It was esse quam videri -- what is, rather than what seems to be -- that mattered to him.
We may never again have a mayor as conservative as Frank Ivancie, nor one as insouciantly unconcerned with public opinion of his performance. We might, however, encourage our current crop of leaders to take one political lesson from Mr. Ivancie and to become as concerned with the esse as they are with the videri.