Jim Schutz is the former city manager of San Rafael, California, and is a principal at JMSB Strategies, LLC. As a poet, he can be reached at jim@localgovernmentpoetry.com or www.localgovernmentpoetry.com.

---

My first city job was in Santa Barbara in 1989, when Paula Abdul and Milli Vanilli ruled the airwaves. What’s changed in local government since then? Just about everything. And yet, the calling of local government remains as meaningful and noble as ever. Every day, local government shows that public service can reflect the best of who we are — not only through facts, data, and analysis, but also through integrity, vulnerability, and heart.

When I retired as San Rafael’s city manager, I wanted to capture the emotional complexity of our work, our frustrations and joys. Since prose could only take me so far, I turned to poetry. Poetry and government don’t typically hang out together. But poetry fits because it’s built to express how something feels deep inside of you. It’s meant to speak the unspoken and describe the indescribable.

The poems below are narrative and approachable, grounding our work in stories that feel familiar to anyone who has served a community. In this era I call the “Great Uncertainty,” I hope that my poetry can help you understand yourself and others, build resilience, and thrive.

“Song to My Local Government People”

Most staff today have known only constant change. In that churn, it’s easy to slip into division and derision instead of gratitude and curiosity. We can lose sight of why we chose this profession — to help people and strengthen our communities. Poetry gives us a place to pause, make sense of it all, and remember why this work matters.

Many of my poems touch familiar themes, like mental health, generational dynamics, having thick skin, and the bonds between colleagues. One poem processes the unexpected loss of a beloved employee. Another reflects on living in the community you serve — and how that sometimes means ducking behind a stack of cantaloupes to avoid someone at the grocery store.

“Song to My Local Government People” is an example of a poem where I convey my pure adoration for the people in this profession. It goes:

You are my people:
local government toilers,
wicked problem foilers.

I’ll take ten of you randomly
and we can crack any crisis,
slash the tangled forest of discord.
Instead of machetes, we’ll use a whiteboard.

We the unsung
but never unstung,
persisting and forging forward
to help, to solve, to innovate.
Together we will celebrate.

We are seldom seen but always see —
what does the community want to be?

We are not expectant spectators.
We are in the arena,
sometimes warrior,
sometimes ballerina.

My people — sister, brother,
truly known,
only to each other.

This poem speaks to the bonds that unite people in local government. We are a self-selected group who care about helping communities flourish. In another poem, “Tragedy of the Commoners,” I call public servants “the uncommon ones who make the commons work for everyone.”

“Don’t Run for City Council”

As a former city manager, I have deep respect and appreciation for elected officials. It is an essential role where the rewards are more intrinsic than financial and rooted in doing what is right for the community. With that said, it was hard not to poke some gentle fun at various stereotypes, as I do in poems about staff and the community. For example, “The Mayor Has a Hammer” refers to the “one-tool” leader who swings at every problem with brute force instead of a more nuanced or delicate tool.

“Don’t Run for City Council” is a tongue-in-cheek poem about some of the reasons people initially seek office. It starts with the stanza:

Don’t run for city council
if you only aspire to higher office,
or to kill the latest development plan,
or to ensure no change at all,
preferring that time stops
with your historic arrival.

After a few more “don’ts,” the poem’s final two stanzas switch to “do’s” of why someone should seek elected office: 

Make way instead for the innovators,
the dreamers, the romantics
who will the city into the future,
who prefer the virtuous path
over what’s politically painless.
Those optimists who inhale conflict
and exhale unity,
partnering with city staff,
always breathing as one.

Run for office if you’ve studied the city,
care deeply for it and all its people —
if you can’t tell the difference
between the crisscrossing roads
and your own veins and arteries.

The poem shows how staff and elected officials rely on one another, each bringing something essential to the work. When there is respect and mutual trust, communities benefit.

“My Favorite Resident”

One surprise from publishing my poetry was the positive feedback I received from people who do not work in local government. The poems, they said, offer glimpses into a world that can seem opaque from the outside, helping humanize local officials by sharing their pressures, aspirations, and triumphs. In the poem, “My Favorite Resident,” I illustrate my vision for the perfect community member.

You startled the retail cashier
with your cheer for the sales tax.
No one had ever done that before.

You knew that it meant a paramedic when you call,
the librarian always ready to help,
the lifeguard giving swim lessons.

It was your arm that shot up
when the city sought neighborhood volunteers
for the green committee.
You made t-shirts that said “Carbon Crushers,”
lightened your city’s touch on the Earth.

My first day as city manager, you popped into my office,
not to complain, but to ask how you can help.
You never dug into a position
without planting seeds of other possibilities.

Your species is going extinct,
replaced by the us versus them’ers,
hoisting their banner of “I win if you lose.”

I dreamt last night that you came to me
as the Greek Goddess of Municipal Civility.
You granted me three wishes
before fading back into the stars.
Then, everyone truly valued others’ opinions.
The only marginalized community was hate,
and all the potholes had been filled.

Waking up, I mused you would’ve urged me,
on that last wish, to stretch a little harder.

The poem offers a glimpse of what can happen when residents and local government see each other as partners. It honors the way engaged community members challenge us, support us, and help shape something stronger together.

Resilience in the face of uncertainty

To stay resilient in this era of the “Great Uncertainty,” we must return to the meaning of our work. As Nobel Prize-winning poet Rabindranath Tagore wrote, “I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”

I published a collection of poems, The Mayor Has a Hammer: Poems About Life in Local Government, to remind us that service is joy. My hope is that these poems remind you how meaningful your work is, how deeply you are valued, and of the purpose that lives quietly beneath the workload and deadlines. After all, you are the uncommon ones who make the commons work for everyone.