by BRIAN COOPER
TH executive editor
Fifty-five years ago, as a Clarke College freshman Ann O'Hara laid eyes on Dubuque for the first time. It was love at first sight.

TH: When you look back on the past 10 years, during your time on the council, are there certain events or developments that you are most proud of?
AM: I'm overwhelmed. I just can't believe all that we've accomplished. It's hard to pick out the highlights because I think they come in categories. Everything associated with the Port of Dubuque - just incredible that we were able to do that as a community. The opening of Main Street, near and dear to me. The small things - I believe there's a new emphasis on handicapped accessibility, which had not been a big thing in Dubuque. But now, so many of the intersections are handicapped accessible. There's also what (then Council Member) Dirk Voetberg calls the Ann Michalski Memorial Restroom at Five Flags, where we do have a handicapped accessible restroom right on the first floor. The upgrades of the parks. The partnerships. I'm a great one for collaboration. I think the city has moved into an era of collaboration, too.

TH: Of all that, what are you most proud of?
AM: The spirit of Dubuque. It's the change. We don't say anymore, "Oh, that would never work in Dubuque." That's the thing I'm most proud of, if I've had any part in that.

TH: Regarding historic preservation. We've seen several occasions where buildings were pretty much ignored until they get on the list for demolition and then suddenly it seems this is a "treasure" that just "has" to be preserved. Should Dubuque have some sort of systematic way of identifying these buildings rather than a case-by-case basis?
AM: Well, that is the phase. We go through this every single time. We go along, and we have a big success in renovation preservation. Maria House or the Platinum Building or something like that. And everybody pats the community on the back and the group says, "Aren't we wonderful? Aren't we great?" I'm part of that. We just think it's wonderful. Then we go sailing along and then all at once it's the bank building or it's the building where the jail is now or, in this case, it's the brewery (Dubuque Brewing and Malting Co. building). All those buildings were there, and they hadn't been ignored. People did try to put things together. But when they didn't work out, they would say, "Well, you know, that didn't work out; maybe we can do something later." And until it becomes a crisis, we just hope for the best. And the crisis happens. People band together, raise large amounts of money and sometimes you save it and sometimes you don't. What should we have? Yes, a policy. There should be a policy. One of them that we have that is very flawed, we do have "demolition by neglect." Maybe there should be an expert sub-committee on the Historic Preservation Commission that would be charged only with doing inventories of buildings and making sure that marginally used or unused history properties are being monitored.

TH: Should every old building in Dubuque be saved?
AM: No. Should every significant old building in Dubuque be saved? Yes. I think you know that the city has commissioned a study where they are actually looking at every building in old Dubuque and assessing them for historic value. We had a discussion one time at the table and one or two members of the council raised that very issue. Just because it's old, it shouldn't be saved, and aren't there old buildings in old neighborhoods that are negligible in value? Well, then, that takes you to the larger issue of historic preservation, and that's the look of the neighborhood. However, my concern for the Prescott (school) project was to tear down so many buildings, a couple of which I think could have been even useful to the total project. The corner building, The Routley Building. I think that was just a shame. "Demolition by neglect" comes into this. But you don't decide that at the council table. You have engineers come in and when a significant building is going to be torn down, you're honest about it. And I don't want to go in the direction of American Trust. They're good people, but they should not have torn that (Odd Fellows) building down. If there was a beginning for me to be involved in politics in Dubuque, where people other than church people knew me, it was when I spoke to the city council on the subject of tearing down the buildings on White Street. The next day, I got a call. Would I be interested in serving on the Housing Commission? I said yes. But it was an impassioned plea to save a neighborhood that got me started.

TH: What do you remember about your first campaign for City Council?
AM: I ran it off my ironing board. Literally.

TH: Tell me more about that.
AM: I love to do laundry. Every item of clothing I wear, when I wear it, take it off, I press it before I put it away. It relaxes me. I feel like I can control - if I can't control my life, I can control the laundry. So my ironing board is always up. It serves as kind of an activity center. This is a funny story, and John Markham will confirm it. I scheduled for both John and me, because I found out that the service clubs really don't want you unless they can have the other guy, and John was on the road a lot. So I said to him, "Would you mind if I scheduled for both of us?"

TH: Let's back up. You were running against John Markham.
AM: Yes. We ran in the primary and came in 1-2. Then we ran against each other. I did the scheduling for us. We never said a cross or a negative word. That was a very amiable campaign. It was a very close election. Then, two years later, he came on the council from that ward.

TH: In 2001, you ran for mayor against Terry (Duggan). He had two terms in. Why did you do that?
AM: I thought it needed to be done. I still think that the points I made were accurate. I was extremely disappointed with the way that went - and I have to be very honest, Brian, and you can take a pass on it because you were on sabbatical then. I think I was badly treated by the Telegraph Herald. Very badly treated by the Telegraph Herald. But to go back to those Rotary and Optimists and Lions - I could not get in. Because Terry wouldn't go, and since he wouldn't go, they wouldn't have me. Which I don't think is fair. But all they did was say is, "Well, we want to have both of you," and I thought that was perfectly reasonable. But I think when you run a non-campaign and when you're an incumbent you can do that. Now, I'm not totally faulting the Telegraph Herald, but I think I had some interesting and important things to say. In fact, in the editorial in which Terry was endorsed, whoever wrote that said I made some very valid points and much of what I said was true, but they were still going to endorse Terry. Now that's OK; but what was not OK was the fact that I just couldn't get in anywhere with my message that I didn't do on my own. But I can sum up that whole campaign, and I really just thought it was funny, and it kind of broke my heart, too. I was at the Nativity parish festival and I was talking to this old guy. He was just a great old guy. We had a wonderful conversation. And everything I was saying he was agreeing with. I thought, "Here's one vote I've got anyway," because I knew it was against the odds. Then I said, "Well, can I count on you for your vote?" He said, "No." I said, "Why not? You agree with me on all these points." He said, "Ann, you do a great job on the council, but I don't want no woman for mayor."

TH: So, it may be OK for council but not for the mayor's spot?
AM: I think so. But on the whole, Brian, really, I have to tell you, I have been treated very fairly by the media. I was disappointed more than angry (in 2001) because I just couldn't get, after the announcement, it was like I announced and then died. I think the coverage of the campaign this time was very good. In general, I think that your coverage of local politics is better than most places - and the fact that you have a reporter who comes to all of our meetings and other significant events. I personally am very comfortable with the media and feel that I have been treated very fairly over the last - well even before, when I was on the Housing Commission, I was interviewed a lot. I try to urge my colleagues to be less uncomfortable with the media and more positive ... I see the media as being a partner, but it's supposed to be somewhat adversarial. The Telegraph Herald is not our newsletter and I understand that very clearly. We have a newsletter, and it's not you.

TH: We talked about your race for mayor in 2001 against Terry. Terry is wrapping up his 12 years as mayor. I'm interested in your assessment, your report card of his tenure as mayor.
AM: I was a student of government and found government fascinating, before I became a politician. I grew up in an intensely political family. ... The form of government we have is fascinating. And it has a very, very bad name. It's called the Weak Mayor-Council, Strong City Manager form of government. And if that's the way you think about it, you're in real trouble. If the council sees itself as weak and the city manager as strong, your city may work just fine and all kinds of great things can happen, but your government's not working right. How can the body that makes the policy be "weak"? If you take your policy function seriously, then you and the city manager are - and must be - partners, and sometimes that is going to lead to a dissension, to disagreements. And if you never see disagreements between the city manager and the city council, something's wrong. Now, the other thing about is those disagreements should be obvious to the citizens. There are times when the citizens really need to see that the city council is ultimately in charge. And if they don't see that, then they become suspicious and questioning about how this whole thing works. The mayor needs to be the leader in that. The mayor is also - the mayor is many things. At the very, most obvious level - and this is where Terry did a very nice job - he is king of, like the Queen of England. He's the spokesman for the city.

TH: Wears a dress and a crown?
AM: (Laugh) No. Functionally. He should cut all the major ribbons. He should greet the guests when they come to town. He should be the spokesperson. He goes off to collect the awards and makes a fine appearance when he's there and so on. The second thing is the mayor should be not just first among equals, which he is in our form of government. But his vote is not a super-vote and he does not have a veto. I think that Terry - now Mayor-elect Buol - that they need to be team-builders. About two years into my term, I sat down - the only substantive conversation I ever had with Terry was on this very subject. He was very courteous. He listened to what I had to say and he said, "Ann, that's not the way I operate."

TH: Team-builder.
AM: Not a team builder or doesn't see himself as a team leader. He sees himself as mayor and very separate from the council. I just don't think that's the way to go. So if you look at the success of Dubuque, you look at the council's role in the success of Dubuque and Terry as the mayor who sits in the center chair of the council, yes, he's had a very successful mayoralty. He's been popular. People like him, so yes, that makes him successful. But the way I see our form of government, I see that he could have been a really great mayor, instead of being mayor at a time of great growth. What if this hadn't been a time of great growth? What if the recession had hit us harder? What if we didn't get the Vision Iowa money? What if some of the things that turned out to be successes turned out not to be successes? He still could have been a great mayor. Because if you are the mayor who leads the council, who leads the city, who is the city's best cheerleader, best comforter, very involved - that, to me, would be a great mayor. And if I had been elected, that's the mayor I would have tried to be. This is the kind of thing you always hope won't end up in the interview - but to help you understand me. I think that for 10 years, I've been an important member of the Dubuque City Council. Most people perceive that in me. In 10 years, that is the only conversation that I had with Mayor Duggan. He also called me once on an airport issue because he and I were actually on the same side. He actually called me and talked to me about it. I was stunned. We had perhaps a five-minute conversation.

TH: That's been it?
AM: That's been it. Now, maybe there are people on the council he talks to, but I don't know who they are. There are too many times over the last 12 years where in the 6-to-1 vote, Terry's the one vote. Maybe he's right, but he doesn't do anything to bring us around to that point of view, without, of course, violating the open meetings law.

TH: You've been very involved and concerned in the area of mental health in the community. You were on staff at the Gannon Center and are now on the board. Our headline this morning talks about a mental health crisis in Dubuque. Is the Gannon Center going to survive?
AM: I don't know. It should. What this community will do without it, I really don't know. The fact that I'm on the board now actually makes it more difficult for me to talk to you about it. The one thing I will say is what I said when I was president of the Mental Health Association and, therefore, their spokesman, when we had the forum in the spring. We said mental health care is a system. And the Gannon Center is not the only responsible party. The Gannon Center is not the only entity that has made some mistakes and some possible errors in judgment. Medical Associates, Mercy, Gannon, Finley, Hillcrest, Lutheran Social Services, Department of Human Services, the Dubuque County Board of Supervisors, I know are all private providers, all of these people - and some more that I'm probably forgetting - constitute the mental health care system in Dubuque. That system has been in a position of breakdown for a long time. There's plenty of blame to go around. The fact that the system is breaking down is everybody's fault.

TH: What do you consider the hardest part of being a council member?
AM: Hmm. (pause) The hardest part for me is being able to see the other guy's point of view.

TH: What makes you happy?
AM: My family. I've had a hard time this past summer because I've had some significant deaths. I'm getting older and some of my friends have been... I have a friend right now who is very, very ill with her fourth cancer illness. Mary Hickey's death made me very sad. The contrary with that is that those things make me happy. I love music. I love to be at the symphony. I love art. Love going to the... I like it when we have successes. I feel very good. I'm happy at daily Mass. Generally, I'm happy at council meetings. I have a funny thing that makes me happy, because the first time I did it, I thought I was going to hate it. I love the Labor Day parade. I love sitting in that car and having people call to me. I am always very inflated by that. I love them and it makes me happy when I feel that they like me. I haven't had anybody ask me that in a long, long time. I'm happy when the paper is here on time.

TH: I hope it's not a rare event.
AM: I'm a happy woman. I've had a good life. I've been able to do some things for people that I think made a difference and that makes me happy too.

TH: Earlier this year, you had indicated that this would be your last term. Right after the election, you indicated that you might go for another round. What do you think?
AM: I had thought that probably 12 years was long enough. This sounds like bragging and I don't mean it that way. I've had so many people tell me go for it one more time. I'm having so much fun right now. But the biggest thing, Brian, has been when people heard or guessed maybe that I wasn't going to run again, they really urged me. Now, there are two more years to go on this term. I know that the longer you're in, the more people you've made mad, one way or another. I've got a couple of hot e-mails up there about the brewery thing. Dan Nicholson, who served with real distinction for 16 years, I think was surprised to find that incumbency is not always the secret to success. But right now, I'm leaning very much in the direction of running again. Partly because I'm finding it's so exciting, but also I'd like to be a part of Round 2 in the growth of Dubuque.

TH: What would be one thing about you your constituents probably don't know?
AM: I think they know a lot of things about me. I used to say that a lot of people don't know that I'm really quite a domestic woman, that I like my house to look nice. I wish I had more time to keep it clean. You can either keep your house clean or have it look nice and I choose to have it look nice. I hope they know how much I love Dubuque. I say that all the time and I hope they don't think that's just another politician saying it. I've told this story so many times, and it's not one of those things that you make up. I came to Dubuque - I can tell you the day, everything. It was Aug. 15, 1950. I'd already had a scholarship to Clarke that was awarded at the end of my junior year. But my father just wasn't comfortable to take me to a place that he'd never seen. He said, "Now, if you don't like it, you can change your mind and go somewhere else." So we drove up here on the old two-lane highways and we came across the Julien Bridge. I looked at Dubuque and I thought, "I love this place." It was love at first sight.

TH: And you had not seen Dubuque before?
AM: I had not seen it. I had no idea how beautiful it was, for one thing. I had seen pictures of Clarke in the catalogs. That was my total acquaintance with the community. I used to walk around town and just look at it and think someday, I'm going to live here. Sometimes your dreams do come true.