Contributing to Her Community
Lou Cooper is a secretary in the Energy and Environmental Engineering division who currently provides administrative support to two groups. After hours, she has another career unknown to many in UDRI: she is the mayor of the town of New Lebanon. By being politically involved in her community, Lou acts on her belief that “you can be part of a solution or part of a problem.” Lou has been a citizen of New Lebanon for 22 years and its mayor for three.
As mayor, Lou is the official head of government for New Lebanon and conducts all of the council meetings. A hired manager is responsible for day-to-day management of the town. Lou describes her work as “mostly ceremonial,” (including the typical cutting of ribbons and hugging of babies), but her description of the issues the town has faced makes it clear that her involvement is far from superficial. By virtue of being mayor, Lou is also a member of the land use planning board, and the Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission. As a citizen of New Lebanon, Lou has also served as president of its festival committee for more than four years, and is a member of several other committees.
One of Lou’s job requirements is that she perform marriages, and she has done several. “I've found it's a lot easier to marry couples that I do not know. When I know the couple personally it can be very difficult ... you can't cry at a wedding when you're the one performing it.”
Lou has found satisfaction in her role as mayor: “Oh, I love it. We don’t do it for the money. [She receives a stipend of $100 a month.] There are days that I wonder why I do it. But for the most part I enjoy it. I’m sure that people look at it as prestigious. I don’t. I look at it as just a job that needs to be done. And somebody needed to do it.”
Since the beginning of her political career, Lou has been stepping up when needed. She began in 1991 when she was asked to fill a vacant council seat. She later became president of the town council, and then vice mayor. Finally, two and a half years ago, New Lebanon was in crisis and in need of a new manager and mayor. Lou says that she had had no aspirations to become mayor. “I was very happy just being a council member. I did have a very good rapport with the citizens of New Lebanon. I had some people come to me: ‘You really need to do this.’ So I did and I pulled a petition [to be put on the ballot]. And then I was the first woman elected mayor of New Lebanon.”
Lou may have felt she was just stepping up in a crisis, but she did have goals and ideas in mind for her town. “I like New Lebanon as it is, and I think it needs some growth, but I didn’t want it to be growth that spirals out of control. I wanted to make sure that we keep the hometown flavor. That’s what makes it unique, that’s what makes people decide to live there. And that’s not been very easy in the last couple years. We’ve worked really hard, not just in the past years that I’ve been there, to increase our economic development. But when you’re off the main highways, and you are competing with communities that are off 70 and 75, it becomes very difficult to do. So we put together a marketing video, we took it from the pastoral approach, saying, you can have your business, but you can have the quality of life as well. I absolutely love our video.” At the same time, Lou is committed to working with the local, small businessperson.
Because of her experiences Lou has developed a broader perspective on the political process, and has more faith in it. “I’ve learned that things aren’t always what they seem. When I first got involved in politics in New Lebanon, it was because there had been a 1% tax placed on the community, and [we] did not get to vote on it. And I thought the members on council were 100% wrong that time. What I have found over my years of involvement is that they did the same thing then, that our council does now: We do what we think is best for the community. And sometimes that best means that you have to sacrifice a little bit.”
Lou typically has meetings two evenings a week, but when it is time to prepare a budget, or handle some crisis, meetings are needed on the weekends too. Even with a schedule like this, Lou points out that she did need permission from the university before taking political office. Beginning with her appointment as a council member ten years ago, Lou had to show that her activities would not interfere with her work for UDRI.
Lou has another year to go on her term. While she has not made any decisions about the future, Lou says she definitely wants to stay politically involved. In recent years, as her nieces and nephews have grown, she has been wishing she had more time to attend their sports activities in the evenings. Six of her 15 nieces and nephews live in the area.
Lou encourages others who want to become politically involved, with this advice: “I think that it has to be more than just a whim. Your heart has to really, truly be in it. And I don’t think that you can do it for selfish reasons. You have to want to do it for the betterment not of yourself but of your community.”
by Julia K. Phelps
First published in the UDRI Informer March 2002
Revised June 2003
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