A New Language : Gus Hardy
It’s now been a month into my fellowship in the Office of Sam Liccardo, the Mayor of San Jose, and yet sometimes, it still feels like my first day every day. When I first took this job, I somehow imagined hours of poring over housing contracts and case studies of homeless veterans (who we’ve resolved to have housed by the end of the year.) Yes, there’s certainly been that, but there’s also another side of this project—collaboration. As a policy intern, I thought that I’d be working more on an exclusively “governmental” side of affairs, but given Mayor Liccardo’s passion for fusing business and local politics to serve the common good, I’ve had a lot more experience outreaching to local industries from cement factories to Oracle than I would have envisioned going in.
In a sense, I know I should have expected this, given that the NPI is built around local businesses and communities. However, it was certainly a shift for me, and I spent most of the first week looking into business initiatives on the issue of homeless veterans to see what kind of projects I was going to be working on in time.
This, for me, is truly why I wanted to be a part of the NPI, so that I could receive an education in the real sense of the term. In classes, we’re usually taught that business and government either don’t overlap, or they’re at competitive odds. Here on the local level, there’s a greater fusion than I would have perceived before, and with that comes a need to stay ahead in the game. Every day has to be given over to learning the ins and outs of government, local bureaucracy, coalitions, communication between cities, and so many other factors. It keeps me on my toes every day, and fosters a great desire in me to learn this new language of governmental policy in the service of those whose needs are great. Is it a perfect journey? No, I make some mistakes now and again, which is part of the learning.
But I wouldn’t trade it for the world.