I met John Waite at the Saranac Commons to interview him. John is wearing, as usual, a Merlyn’s t-shirt, shorts and Saucony tennis shoes. He usually gets a new pair of tennis shoes just before he goes on a trip somewhere, but this year, he is running for office, so in all likelihood won’t be going to Europe. John pays himself essentially a minimum wage salary at Merlyn’s. He lives modestly in the apartments above the Roost, the building he invested in not too long ago. The Saranac Commons are also something Waite helped make happen. There is a door from the Commons to the book and game store, Merlyn’s. I remember when the Commons was Marlyn’s old home.
The transformation shows the capacity for creativity, innovation and imagination in Spokane as a city and by individuals in the city. It shows how leaders collaborate together to make something new out of the old via a process of transformation, starting with a dream and then making that dream a reality. I loved my old city San Diego, but when I moved to Spokane, for the first time in my life I knew what it was to be known in my community at large and see people make real, core changes for the better, working together through various challenges. Spokanites are a determined people in my view who are enduring and know how to set in for the long term commitment. When it comes to the community. Spokanites work, play, love, laugh and argue all together. They’re a gigantic family. And the Saranac Commons is a great example of Spokane coming together as a family. It’s a cool meeting place to hang out now and see people you know. I already had affection for this place when it was still Merlyn’s. It was like a second home to me because I used to study in Merlyn’s at the game tables when finishing my bachelor degrees. It was a great halfway point and quieter than most of the libraries.
Where I used to study, now gorgeous glass bottles hang from the ceiling in cobalt blue and dragon fly hues, shades of different seasons. They were collected by Brian Martin and turned into this chandelier by Alex Robinson, who has an eye for how light filters and reflects through different colors of glass throughout the day, making it always a different piece of artwork.
The atmosphere here is homey and open in the Saranac Commons before it gets busy.
John didn’t want to do his interview in his store because the Saranac Commons’s air conditioning is already working well in the record breaking heat wave on the morning I interview him. Merlyn’s will take a bit to cool down. His voice is deeper than usual this morning as a result of spending a sleepless night due to the tragic events that happened right outside his apartment during Hoopfest, resulting in the brutalizing and hospitalizing of a local Navy Seal who was acting as a bouncer that over a dozen police units showed up at.
Despite his exhausting, sleepless night, John exudes a reassuring strength and confidence, an aware and energetic demeanor, an overall caring thoughtfulness that is his trademark. It’s his trademark because part of how he is so successful in his business is customer service. He knows most of his customers by name, and remembers what they subscribe to. If someone’s having a bad day, he talks to them for awhile. It’s not hard to make the connection that because he might remember people of the community, he wants to serve as a city council member the same way, with the same thoughtfulness and fairness that builds loyalty and community goodwill.
I get the interview started when we are comfortable and cool.
Kelly: As a community leader, John Waite, how does your system of values, ethics, or faith, if you have one, guide your leadership decisions?
John: I think everybody’s system of values guides them – I’m not sure ethics or faith, I guess ethics. So you build up this amount of information in your life after years and years, decades and decades. You try to make sensible, reasonable decisions for you and for everyone else. I’ve always been a community person where when I want to do something, what I do to be good for me but for the community as well. Your values dictate you how you are and who you are and at some point we need to talk about where accountability comes into all that.
Kelly: We will talk about accountability later. Would you tell me about your system of values, ethics or faith?
John: What defines me in my head is hard work, being honest, helping others, and I am also into efficiency and systems running properly and allocating resources so they’re the most beneficial to everybody, not just to a segment of the population. Trickle down economics doesn’t work. I don’t believe in giving money to rich people that they will be generous and necessarily create jobs and help poor people.
(John used to talk about this a lot on his radio show at KYRS, which is no longer on the air. It is fairly easy to find things John has previously said, written or discussed on local, national and international levels. There are Youtube videos from his previous campaign. Of course his previous views may have changed.)
Kelly: Can you please give me an example of how you have applied your ethics to being a leader?
John:When I used to work at the radio station I started as a news loader. I felt that was the way you worked your way up the ladder, and I hung out there for awhile and helped them raise money and at the same time I helped other people and eventually I had my own show. I showed them how I could raise even more money. I had a show there for awhile. But obviously at some point I didn’t have a show (chuckles) so, as far as working, I feel you have to be hands on. I think the word “leadership” is hard, because it means something a little different to everybody. To some people it means telling other people what to do. Leadership to me is doing things and leading by example.
Kelly: What can we do to hold our leaders accountable?
John: You have to judge them by their actions and not their words. Judge them by their deeds and the merit of their deeds. Are they fulfilling the promises they made? Are they doing their best for the community? That’s always subjective. For example, I want people to spend money on fiscally responsible things that help people as much as possible, not frivolous things.
Kelly: What do you look for in a leader?
John: What I want out of them is to be honest and do what they say they’re gonna do and have integrity, which I have measured over the course of time. I wanna know they’re not trying to gain monetarily from their public service.
Kelly: How can we get the community to participate more in choosing leaders?
John: It’s really hard. It’s not just a Spokane thing. It is a nation wide problem, maybe a worldwide problem. When you ask how to hold people accountable, that’s really great question because 92 percent of people are unhappy with their congress people yet 90 percent of congress people get reelected. There’s a disconnect between what we want and our desire to have honest leadership, then the practical reality of what we are voting for and what we are getting. Part of it is people are burned out. They don’t like the political system. When we do the primary I think it’s something like 12 percent of the eligible voters will vote. Basically one in ten. People will vote and make decisions that affect the course of Spokane. And most of those will vote without knowing almost anything about the candidate. I don’t know what you can do. People are apathetic, they’re tired, they’re angry, they’re frustrated.
Kelly: You say there’s not enough coverage. How would you advise people to go about finding information about candidates?
John: You have to look at websites, you have to look at debates. The League of Women Voters is going to have their debates online hopefully. It’s a lot of work. Look at what you’ve been doing these past weeks when you are trying to figure out how anyone spends time on politics. Not everyone is cut out for it. Not everyone wants to be an investigative journalist like you. And if that’s what it takes to know if your politicians are doing a good job, we are in big trouble.
K: What about the responsibility to think critically?
John: Those aren’t their values. No one wants responsibility for that.
Kelly: What does that mean? How can we have rights without responsibility? What are the consequences of that?
John: Well, the consequence is our country is falling apart. We have a political system that’s not working really well.
Kelly: What about that idealism you’ve expressed before in your previous interviews, when you’ve talked publicly about integrity and honesty and candidates? What about that political practical aspect of it or that art of statecraft? What about you as a businessman? You’ve probably had to make certain decisions.
John: I’m probably not the best politician. I refuse to lie and I refuse to – I would prefer not to sell my soul to win.
K: But what about the art of diplomacy and statecraft? Isn’t that how you can be political without selling your soul?
John: Well, the exchange with other people is okay. They have concepts and ideas. Like, you want x, y or z, and this guy over here wants another set of things and we all three have to work together to compromise. And it’s not like selling your soul or being morally disingenuous to have three people sit in a room and make decisions and cooperate. I have no problem with that part. Somebody wants to hand me a bag of money to do a thing, I won’t do that. So working with other people together is not, to me, shorting my morals or ethics, the same thing as selling out. That’s kind of a different thing. To me diplomacy is a different thing than selling out. The old adage is that politics is the art of compromise.
Kelly: Finding the happy medium?
John: Right. Now, getting into politics, I don’t think you should compromise a whole lot of what you are. What I’m trying to present in my city council race is what I am as a person, how I am. Especially on social media, to present a story of what I want Spokane to be like.
Kelly: So you are conscious of marketing yourself as a brand?
John: (positively) Probably. I guess marketing is part of this. I’m not sure what it means to be a brand, I’m a human being. (smiles.) You know, I’m not like Chlorox Bleach.
Kelly: So let’s talk about your qualifications as a leader. Two of your big slogans for the race are that you will bring “real leadership” to Spokane and also that you’re going to fight for the people. What do these things mean to you?
John: I care about Spokane and I want what’s best for Spokane, to do the things that are right for Spokane. I’m not gonna do the things that are gonna make me money personally or put me in a position of power so I can be the “cool guy.” My desire is to make the world a better place. I’m not motivated by money. I would like to see everyone have money because they can spend it. If they come in my store then, that’s all right. So as far as leadership, you can look at somebody’s past experiences and what they’ve done. You can look at what I’ve done for my community compared to the other two candidates.
Kelly: Can you give me a specific example? I know you’re a businessman, but I want to know what you’ve done as a leader in the community besides being a business owner.
John: 15 years ago this neighborhood (along Main downtown) was kind of a drug-infested pit. Jim Sheehan and Dan Spalding and I, we are basically the guys who changed this neighborhood and took it over and moved in and turned it into to one of the best areas of town. I’ve owned my store for 35 years. Frankly, for a small business, that’s pretty amazing for comic books and games and all that. I’ve had a couple generations of young people turn to old people (smiles) come to my store and be pretty great human beings for the world and I feel part of that. I taught, you know, in District 81 and coached volleyball. Along with helping out with donations for fund drives for Our Place.
There’s a long list of things I’ve done that are valuable.
Kelly: So when you say real leadership, you say you have the savvy to network with different people in the community to achieve in the community what you’ve achieved here on Main?
John: I have a lot of people that know me and know my work and know that I’m gonna work hard for the right reason. People understand that if I’m doing something I’m probably doing it for the right reasons. We moved into an area no one wanted. Nobody wanted to be in the neighborhood, so it was an opportunity to change this. So I moved down here so I could care for my community on a daily basis.
Kelly: Was that part of your ten year plan?
John: Ten years ago, roughly – been more than ten now. March 27, 2003 we invaded Iraq and I thought, this is not right, this is not government doing the right thing. I started being politically active. I had always voted before, but then I ran and helped other people run.
(John, through Merlyn’s, has donated to PJALS in Spokane towards international peace efforts and bringing speakers to Spokane such as, recently, Chris Hedges. This was also a neat move not long after he announced his candidacy for City Council to advertise to people what he stands for and that he puts his money where his mouth is. Also, he endorses Shar Lichty for mayor, who works at PJALS, and Shar has endorsed John in his campaign.)
Kelly: So you talk abut running and helping other people run. You made decisions for other people. Part of being a leader is making those kind of decisions. So what are some successful decisions you’ve made as a leader? Give me some concrete examples, and some things that you thought afterwards, oh, I could have done that this way. What are some challenges that you had as a leader?
John: I’ve been pretty lucky and successful in my work. I attribute that to luck and hard work. I don’t think I’m a self-important human being. I think that I have persevered through hard times. I live on nothing. I don’t spend money unless it’s necessary. I want my work to succeed here. My business work has succeeded. The project to rebuild Main succeeded. When I coached I was successful. I didn’t win everything I wanted to win, but that’s not life. You win some and you lose some. I play basketball twice a week still. Almost everybody there (at the YMCA) is better than me. But sometimes I can work harder and beat them and achieve through effort and hard work.
Kelly: What about decisions you’ve made that were hard decisions you had to make? Like when you rebuilt the community? Were there sacrifices?
John: One of the things I did was I sacrificed my whole retirement, every penny of my retirement. I refinanced my house to buy one of the buildings. I threw every penny I had into this to do what I did with Roost. They were gonna tear that place down. They were going to bulldoze it, which means a parking lot. I was willing to put everything into it, because I believed it was a worthwhile endeavor. I was willing to put everything on the line. I’ve done that with my business as well. My life is very complicated and this is a lot of work to do what we did, but it was well worth it for our neighborhood.
(He has loyal employees who have worked for him for years. He encourages creative ideas for bringing in new business from his employees. He is currently trying to sell his home by Corbin Park. )
Kelly: Are these the kinds of decisions we can expect you to make as a leader of City Council?
John: Business decisions are different from political decisions. Political decisions are more about allocating resources so you’re achieving the maximum efficiency and goal. Your streets work, your police work, your utilities work. At the city level to me a big part of it is not just police fire and utilities, which are basic, but also how does the city relate to mental health services, how does the city relate to problems with homelessness? How does the city relate to the county? How does the city relate to urban growth?
Kelly: Okay, so along those lines, Lori Kinnear has a lot of experience working for the cit y council and a great collaborative track record. What are some of the ways you would collaborate well with other city council members based on your own record of collaboration?
John: It’s kind of public record that I can get things done and move people around for the right reasons. I’m going to bring an open-mindedness to the council as a business person. As a business person I have to be open-minded and dynamic about my thought process and I believe in this vision, that things can be different, and I think that’s valuable.
Stay tuned for the next part in the series on faith values and leadership!