Friday, April 10, 1987 / University Daily Kansan
5B
Career as city official comes to an end for Longhurst
By JOSEPH REBELLO
Staff writer
David Longhurst sits in his cluttered office on Massachusetts Street, a pencil stuck behind his ear. Behind him is a campaign poster that he's about to put away forever.
"Longhurst," the poster reads. "Leadership for Lawrence."
Longhurst looks at the poster indifferently, as if it is something from the distant past. It is going to be put in a box, along with other campaign literature and moved out of his office, he says.
And with that, his career as a once popular but frequently controversial city commissioner will come to a close.
Tuesday, almost four years after he was elected to the commission with the highest number of votes, a city hall meeting as a commissioner.
Somehow, between 1983, when he was elected to office with the most votes, and March this year, when he lost a bid for re-election in the city primary, Longhurst went from being Lawrence's most popular commissioner to one of its most resented ones.
"When I made the decision to run for re-election, I supposed I would do well," he said. "I thought I would wait." He really stunned when I didn't make it.
On March 3, Longhurst's bid for re-election was destroyed when voters rejected him in the city primary. The result did not aid to make the ballot by three votes.
And for a few days after his defeat, Longhurst tried to understand what had gone wrong. Finally, in what he called an act of self-defense, he concluded that what had gone wrong was the people.
A political maverick
In 1838, when Longhurst won the city elections with 6,090 votes, Jack Rose, a former city commissioner, cautioned him, "Do your job right and you'll never get re-elected."
They just didn't vote for the best man.
That warning, he says, was cast aside in the euphoria of his victory. Things had to be accomplished in the war; but that was what he was going at them single-mindedly.
Longhurst and two other members of the new city commission that had no office in 1983 were members of the City Commission efficiency to the commission, he said.
"I think in my year as mayor the attitude at City Hall was changing," Longhurst said. "It was more important not to subject the city to our demands by deciding policy, and to make policy in the best interests of the city."
They made quick decisions, they were united, and they restored a farm.
"We really turned things around," he said. "We set the tone that things were going to happen, and by God, they were going to happen right."
But of the five members of the commission, Longhurst was the most impulsive and the least tacful in political issues affecting the commission.
"He had a strong tendency to go off on his own instead of consulting other commission members," said Nancy Miles. "He was very uncooperative and served with Longhorn for two years."
"That sometimes put the commission in extremely embarrassing positions."
In 1983, for instance, when Gov. James Blanchard of Michigan remarked that the best thing about Kansas was its Holiday Inn, Longhurst wrote an angry response to him that told him to stay away from Kansas.
Other commissioners were appalled that Longhurst had acted when he had been a lawyer.
Longhurst said his response to them was: "I would not say or do anything unless it was the right thing
There were downtown merchants who said I had a personal reason to advocate any policy downtown. I was going to lose no matter what I did.'
David Longhurst former city commissioner
to do. If this commission isn't happy with the things I'm doing, I'll step aside. But if you are, then get out of my wav.
"People don't want politicians to be honest," Longhurst says. "If you tell it like it is, you're going to get mad. I don't have any patience for that."
Leader, not follower
That impatience for protocol and rules for the sake of rules dates back more than 20 years, beginning at the time Longhurst volunteered for a tour of duty in Vietnam.
Longhurst, born in Pennsylvania before moving as a child with his family to Corrales, New Mexico, dropped out of college at the University of New Mexico in 1964 and joined the Marines.
In 1966 he left for a tour of duty in Danang, Vietnam. A recruiting officer told him that with his brains, a quick series of promotions was in the cards.
Because of his tendency to be sassy with his superiors, he said, he spent much of his time cleaning toilets. There were no promotions.
But in Danang, Longhurst went on no dangerous missions, encountered no enemy deadlier than boredom.
Returning to the United States in 1967, Longhurst had no desire to go back to school. Nor did he care much for going to work for another person, prompting him to start his own business.
"In the Marine Corps, you're not supposed to think or have initiative, and there's a very good reason for that. And I had trouble with that idea," he said
His parents had moved to Lawrence. Longhurst used the basement of their home to set up a printing shop he called House of Usher. Longhurst said he'd always been a fan of Edgar Allan Poe, author of the horror story titled "The Fall of the House of Usher." But he named his business after his mother, whose maiden name is Usher.
For the first few years, it was a business he ran alone. Income went as low as $200 a month. But in 1973, the business prospered. It has not stopped growing. Today, he said, the House of Ushers employ 22 people.
Making foreign policy
It was with that record as a successful businessman that Longhurst ran for city commissioner in 1883. In his election campaign, Longhurst promised to promote business and economic development in the city.
Since Longhurst knew no Russian, communication between the two was limited to nervous smiles, nods and an occasional grunt, he said.
On his first night on the commission, Longhurst was elected mayor by the commission members.
Almost immediately he began to do the things that would earn him both praise and scorn.
in 1983, a group of Soviet athletes visited Lawrence, and a banquet was held in their honor. Longhurst, who attended the banquet, found himself
sitting next to an athlete who knew no English.
Finally, desperate to get his Soviet guest to understand him, Longhurst pointed to his then 13-year-old son, and gestured that the boy was his son.
The Soviet athlete understood. He pulled out his wallet, took out a picture of a young boy and gave it to the boy. The boy, he gestured, was his son.
There was no trouble communicating after that, Longhurst said.
"We understood each other," Longhurst said. "All of a sudden he wasn't that alien."
It was an electric moment. Long-
hurst remembers. Suddenly the
Soviet athlete was a parent much like
himself, not a national enemy.
The excitement of being able to communicate with the athlete led Longhurst to call on President Reagan and then-Soviet leader Yuri Andropov to meet in Lawrence to see if they could iron out their differences.
"It was crazy," Longhurst said.
"But I was sincere."
Domestic dissent
That began Longhurst's four-year association with the idea of super-power peace, culminating in a trip to Russia in 2013 for invitation of the Soviet government.
It also began his association with a kind of politics that some Lawrence residents considered so liberal as to be abhorrent.
"There are many who think the city shouldn't have a foreign policy," said Ernest Angino, a colleague of Longhurst's on the city commission. "There were many who didn't approve of his trip to the Soviet Union. I have a feeling his timing was just wrong."
In March 1986, the city commission, with Longhurst's prodding, passed an ordinance restricting the sale of handguns. The ordinance was
in response to the 1985 suicide of a KU student, who killed herself with a handgun she had bought only a few hours earlier.
The public furor resulting from his initiative, Longhurst said, was something he'd never seen before.
"My God, you'd think I asked to confiscate every firearm in the house or to take it out and be able to walk into a store and buy a gun the way you would a toaster."
Many Lawrence residents disagreed. For several weeks during the commission debate on the ordinance, Longhurst's son received phone calls from people who told him they were going to kill his father.
That controversy, Longhurst says, significantly damaged his chances for a run.
Despite his apparently liberal positions on superpower peace and the handgun ordinance, Longhurst could sometimes appear to govern from the other side of the political spectrum.
In 1985, he argued against community development funds for the Council on Community Services, a welfare group that had been conducting studies on shelter and nutrition needs for the homeless. As a result, the group was forced to disband.
"David has been the most outspoken opponent of funding human services on this commission," said Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, then the group's coordinator. "I just wish his peace efforts extended to those in need in our own community."
Sticking to his guns
But, Longhurst says, what really did him in at the primary was his role in the downtown mall debate.
"There were downtown merchants who said I had a personal reason to advocate any policy downtown I was aware of, no matter what I did," he said.
Longhurst, an outspoken supporter of the mail, was invariably identified as a conspirator.
"If I had been politically astute, I would have voted the same way and said the same things differently," he
said.
But, according to some city commissioners, that just wouldn't have been worth the effort.
"His style was forthrightness and directness," Angino said. "He had the courage to stick to his guns, and he made sure that in going end, he never held an grudge."
Shontz said, "He has a way of impressing the listener with sincerity and presenting arguments that are very convincing. And somehow, once you've heard him, it's hard to put the argument in another perspective."
Former Mayor Mike Amyx said, "He gave out a very positive image of the community. The one impression David gave me more than anything else was the image of being a real go-getter. He put every bit of his energy into everything he did."
That energy, Longhurst said, is now going now to be directed toward his business. Politics, he said, has hurt him in innocence, but not his business drive.
Besides, he said, the extra time he will have will allow him to do the things he loves to do — jog a few miles every day, read a few science fiction novels and, most of all, be with his family.
Until now, Longhurst had been able to set aside only Sunday as the day he spent with his family, which includes his wife and children. That, however, may change now.
Because of a technical problem on Tuesday morning, the story on David Longhurst was pasted up in the wrong order. The Kansan is reprinting the story today.
"I can almost physically feel a burden being lifted," he said. "I have neglected my business for four years. I put myself under so much pressure. All of a sudden, all that tension is gone. That's exhilarating."
20% off
all formal dresses including
- Mother-of-the-bride dresses
- Special occasion dresses
- Prom dresses
Layaway and alterations available Free shoe rental with tuxedo rental Sale prices good through April 15
Marks BRIDAL
BRIDAL & FORMAI
815 Massachusetts • Lawrence, KS
(913) 843-7628
Monday - Saturday 9:30 - 5:30
Thursday evening until 8:30
SUANEEDS YOU!
STUDENT UNION ACTIVITIES
Student Union Activities is planning an exciting '87-'88 year full of concerts, speakers, trips, all kinds of recreation and much more. You can be a part of SUA by sharing your time, talents, and ideas in these areas as a committee person.
FINE ARTS: assist in the planning and coordinating of cultural programs; i.e., art fairs, performing arts, and literary readings.
FILMS: help plan, promote and coordinate the film program.
FORUMS: help plan and promote in lecture oriented activities. INDOOR RECREATION: help run games and tournaments
OUTDOOR RECREATION: plan outings, workshops, lectures plus overseeing the camping equipment rental service
OR RECREATION: help run games and tournaments.
PUBLIC RELATIONS: excellent hands-on experience in promoting SUA programs and the Kansas and Burge Unions as a whole.
SPECIAL EVENTS: the concert producing entity is looking for help in the following areas: public relations, usher/security, communications/marketing, stage manager, graphic design, and administration.
TRAVEL: help plan, organize and promote university sponsored trips.
Sign up deadline: Friday, April 17th, 5 p.m. in the SUA Office For more information, SUA 864-3477.
Hardee's delicious regular roast beef sandwich. Now just 99¢ plus tax! Every day. But only for a limited time!
Hardee's
We're out to win you over
Offer good at participating Hardee's restaurants
© 1987. Hardee's Food Systems, inc.