Reader Review from Margit!

Helen Boosalis: My Mother's Life in Politics, by Beth Boosalis Davis, University of Nebraska Press, 2008

The biography of Helen Boosalis reads like a lively textbook of responsive and responsible city government and a fascinating account of a Greek-American Minneapolis girl who makes good as the first female mayor of a city over 100,000, Lincoln, Nebraska. The memoir is Beth Davis's perspective on her mother's political career seen through a daughter's eyes.

Boosalis didn't start out as a politico. She and other League of Women Voters members supported revision of Lincoln's City Charter to include a strong mayor form of government. When the men didn't implement the strong mayor system, Boosalis stepped up to the plate after 16 years on the council, won the mayor's seat, and proceeded to practice what she preached: open and transparent government, opportunities for neighborhoods to take action, and a strong comprehensive plan that guided development for years.

There are numerous nuggets of wisdom gleaned from this political pioneer who became the first female president of the US Conference of Mayors and ran as the Democratic-endorsed candidate for governor of Nebraska.

Boosalis cultivated public-private partnerships in the 1981 economic recession that hit cities hard. She "encouraged city departments to use volunteers to help sustain existing programs facing budget cuts," among other innovative strategies.

Davis, herself an Evanston IL city council member, asked her mother "what she thought were the most important attributes for serving in public office." Her mother's list began with "courage, willingness to take risks; knowledge and preparation" and it goes on.

Davis tells her mother's story with "flash forwards" to the 1986 gubernatorial race, creating momentum, interest and insights into the mind and heart of a woman whose political focus throughout several decades of public service was community.