For the past couple years, I’ve been following 94-year-old Carmel resident Hans Lehman’s Substack blog, Walking My Ways (hanslehman.substack.com). Twice a week, Hans writes about his adventures in Carmel and beyond, finding interesting and positive things in ordinary life. Reading his posts lets us tag along with one of Carmel’s busiest people. Hans inspired me to try something different this week. City government spends much of its time solving problems, something I happen t

A Village, Not a Destination When I was growing up in SoCal, we got our first driver training in the massive parking lot at brand-new Disneyland. That lot, now filled with parking structures, along with every sidewalk, restroom, restaurant, and well-trained employee, was designed to welcome tens of thousands of visitors every day. It was engineered for extraordinary volume. Carmel was designed for something entirely different: a village. A place where neighbors walk to the po

A Talk Given to the Panetta Institute Student Interns on August 10th Good morning. When I was asked to come back and speak to another Panetta Institute class, I was both honored...and I have to say, a little surprised. After all, this room is filled with outstanding students who are headed to Capitol Hill. You've worked incredibly hard to get here. Many of you may have dreamed about working in Washington for years. And then they invited...the mayor of a one-square-mile town w