Quotes by Dick Murphy

“Your first obligation, I suppose, is to your God. Your second is to your family. And your third is to your community. And you ought to try to fulfill all of those in your life.”

“I dont care if youre good or not. You dont always have a corner on perfection. And you need people to challenge what youre suggesting.”

“You have the biggest impact on controlling, on affecting local lives as mayor. Its so much more important than being a state legislator.”

“Im convinced that unless you have some public financing of elections, you are never going to remove the power of wealthy interests over elected officials.”

“I dont think that politics attracts the best and the brightest of America. It doesnt attract the most sincere people.”

“Im not going to rule out running for a second term. But, I think you have to be psychologically prepared to walk away from the job after four years. Its the only way that you cannot be influenced by those special interests.”

“You know, its almost human nature. If you give me a gift, I feel indebted to you... assuming its a substantial gift.”

“It took a long time for me to convince my staff people to leave me unscheduled from 2:00 to 4:00 everyday. And I need to do that as mayor. I need to schedule accessibility time.”

“I think its quite nicely arranged around our cultural center this year, and I think thats fine. People still will see the stores as they park and walk through downtown, going to and from the festival. There will be plenty of traffic that day. Well see how it goes this year.”

“I dont think we ever had before the Council discussion of the sewer cost of service study, you know, at a public meeting, ... We talked about it informally, you know, but not in front of the council.”