"The scary thing about being mayor is that you're limited in how much good you can do but the harm you can do is almost without limit," --Dave Lovell
Jorge Barrera
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Oct 30/00) - Fittingly, Dave Lovell lives on the corner across from City Hall.
In this house on the corner of 48th Avenue and 51st Street, his political career began. The kitchen table was campaign headquarters. Ten years later, in the same place, his presence on the city's political scene came to an end.
 David Lovell |
In 1990 he became an alderman in a byelection. In 1991 he was elected to council. In 1994 he was elected mayor and served for two terms.
"The scary thing about being mayor is that you're limited in how much good you can do but the harm you can do is almost without limit," he said.
Despite the limitations, Lovell believes he was what the city needed at the time.
Yellowknife had just lost 300 mining jobs and 600 government jobs. The economy was dependant on gold mining. And now as he leaves he says the city's financial situation is stable and the economy has diversified.
Last Monday, he dropped the gravel in adjournment for the last time.
His office walls are now bare, his desk a clean slate, no remnants of his presence.
"I thought it better if I cleared out and let Gord move in," says Lovell.
Loss no surprise
There was no shock when the numbers read his political obituary the night of the Oct. 16 election -- he knew his moment had passed.
"I always knew that I could lose," said Lovell. "A year ago I didn't have a chance, three months ago I had an outside chance."
"Knowing the results gave a finality to the whole thing," he says. "The town can go on."
Times have changed he explained. The town has changed. It's bigger and this changed the political game.
"It used to be that you ran on reputation because everyone knew you," he said. "Now it's a matter of selling yourself."
He said this change is neither good nor bad, it just is. The best man won and Lovell was glad Bob Brooks didn't win.
"He just wanted the job too much," says Lovell. "He wanted to be mayor to be important."
When Lovell searches to define the role of mayor he reverts to metaphor.
"I like to think of the role of mayor as coach to both administration and council."
"My job is to bring out points not being brought out, taking a contrary role, not because I disagree with council but to make sure other views are presented. The mayor needs to see a broad strategy on which way to go."
The house bears few signs of his political life -- boxes filled with items retrieved from his former office at city hall and a plaque on the door to his bedroom that reads "Dave Lovell Alderman".
His bedroom bears few hints of who he is. The bed is neatly tucked, the walls are sparsely covered. Only a small cushioned flower basket on the floor breaks the monotony of the room. His small black dog Velvet sleeps there.
Lovell's childhood room is upstairs and even though he's scaled Macchu Picchu in Peru, boated down the headwaters of the Amazon River, passed through military checkpoints in Paraguay, all during the heady days of Latin America in the 1970's, he ended up working only a few meters from his house, sleeping on the floor below his childhood bedroom.
He grew up in this house. In his parent's bedroom upstairs he sat at J. Russell Lovell's bedside, watching his father died from cancer in May 1994, never knowing his son would be mayor.
No one sleeps in his parent's bedroom. They met in Red Deer after they both served in the Second World War; Catherine Elizabeth's boyfriend had been killed in battle.
The house came on a barge in 1946. Back then houses were ordered in full. It was built in 1947.
"I put nails in these walls," said Lovell. "I put a lot of my own blood, sweat and tears into this place, it's my only home."
There is an emptiness to the place and a soft echo when chairs scrape against the hardwood floors in the dining room. In a corner of the living room the reading chair seems a mile away from the loveseat and two miles away from the polar bear hide tacked up to the far wall.
Only two people live here now, Lovell and his son Russell.
Russell is feeling a little sick and his mother Shirley, Lovell's second wife, brings him over. Russell, who's in kindergarten, is trying to get at model boats that line some shelves in the living room and uses a white footstool to reach it, the same white footstool Lovell used as a child.
Five years ago, Lovell came home from a trip and Shirley was gone. Two years ago they settled the divorce. They're still friends.
His first wife Jean had Multiple Sclerosis; he didn't know it when they married in 1979. Eight years later they divorced. He still thinks of her as beautiful.
The last 10 years have been busy, leaving little time for the distribution of affection.
He has no close pals any more, not like when he was at the University of Alberta as a student over a quarter century ago.
"There are people I admire and respect, but I don't go out and have a beer with anyone," he says.
There is no sadness in the statement. He loves his son and his city. They are all the friends he needs.
Now that his work with one is over he can concentrate on learning how to be a father.
And the future, it will come. There are computer courses to take and jobs to find.
He knows the story will end where it began, in the city by the great lake and his photo will hang in City Hall long after people forget who lived in the house on the corner.
