Conversation with Diane Hoover

Ask a couple of leading questions while having tea with Diane Hoover, and you get an insightful short course about how personal/domestic and civic/political life changes for public officials and their spouses when they move from one city to another.

The wife of Royal Oak City Manager Tom Hoover focused quickly when I asked her to concentrate on how much being the wife of a public official adds to the well-known burdens of relocation: finding new churches, schools, clubs, stores, and the like. The tea talk came about because several weeks earlier I had been reading a biography of Abigail Adams, the politically involved and assertive wife of our second President, at the same time that our city manager was catching flack from here and there. I found myself wondering what it’s like to hear and read frequent criticism about your husband.

By the time our conversation ended, Diane had touched on Christmas shopping; inaugural balls; garbage bags; helping Tom with his homework, or not; the different political and social cultures of the Midwest and the Northeast; her own vocation; planned vacations; forms of government. In the column at right, Diane provides personal/family information to supplement my civically focused summary.

The city manager’s position in Worcester, Mass., where Tom served almost 10 years before coming to Royal Oak, is more like that of a private sector CEO, Diane recalls. The manager sets the agenda, offering initiatives for the city council to consider. Because of the Commonwealth culture in Massachusetts, Worcester’s elected officials were in frequent functional and social contact with state and federal officials, including people like the Kennedys. One effect of such power and exposure is that the manager is almost a celebrity, recognized almost anywhere he happens to be in the city,

“So much so, that it caused me to stop Christmas shopping with Tom, because we couldn’t walk more than a few feet without someone stopping us to talk to him.”

As Tom’s wife, Diane was frequently expected to be the “spousal presence” at civic, social, and political events – from picnics to “lots of dinners” to mayoral inaugural balls, a duty she had already learned to perform in Toledo as Tom’s fiancée. Soon after the Hoovers’ arrival in Worcester, several firefighters were killed in a major fire, and Diane was among those political spouses drafted to help console grieving families in a tent set up for that purpose, then to attend the funerals.

Also soon after her arrival but on a lighter note, a newspaper called to get her general impressions of Worcester. As such interviews go, they ranged over many topics, including cost-of-living. At one point, Diane mentioned in passing that she was surprised at the high price of garbage bags. That comment became the headline, because unknown to Diane the cost of garbage bags had been hotly contested at a recent council meeting.

“I have a framed certificate citing that event, reading in part: ‘This certificate entitles the bearer to unlimited city trash bags under the condition that she never talk to another reporter!’” Diane came to recognize that in The Commonwealth, “Almost everything is ultimately political.”

Both she and Tom are Midwesterners -- born in Toledo within six years of each other, although not meeting until adults – and they enjoy being back “where people are simply friendlier and the culture is not so intensely political.” As an example, Diane says that although she occasionally uses the mute button when watching  televised CITCOM meetings, the Royal Oak experience is nothing like watching Worcester’s council meetings. “Probably most of the decisions have already been made, but as is true of Congressional Hearings, the individuals play to the camera.” 

During Tom’s fifth televised annual performance evaluation, the reviews seemed heavily critical, and Tom suggested that they vote right then whether to retain him. Taken aback, the council “crept under the table,” in Diane’s words, and Tom remained for another five years. Almost 10 years is a long time to serve as city manager, a position with a national average life expectancy of six or seven years. Why did it end? Diane’s guess is that for everyone the time had come for a change.

A Worcester reporter who reached out to VersagiVoice to find out what Tom was walking into in Royal Oak told me that the council was excessively micromanaging, that both parties had become unhappy and, retrospectively, that the very rapid filling of the position without a real talent search after Tom resigned made it clear that Tom’s position had become untenable.

The inevitable disagreements of Royal Oak politics go with the territory, Diane says, but occasional irritation with this or that imbroglio very seldom leads to serious personal attacks. Although Tom’s 24/7 commitment to Royal Oak is not quite as demanding as it was in Worcester, there are frequent early morning and evening meetings, and he brings work home most nights. To assure that he gets time to relax -- to putter in the garden and the like – Diane sorts the homework into two piles, one of which she mentally labels “not tonight.”

Something caused me to mention that the Charter Review Committee, on which I serve, had been asked to study the pluses and minuses of moving to a Strong Mayor form of government. Diane made three observations. First, Toledo converted to the Strong Mayor form of government and has begun to rethink that move. Second, “There are several forms of strong mayor government, depending on how the charter is written, and that affects where the authority lies.” Third, back in the Northeast, she had convinced Tom that he and she should attend a public meeting about whether the city should convert to a strong mayor. “No one expected us to appear. It turned out that the press spent a lot of time discussing the issue with Tom, the result of which appeared to reinforce his position, and Worcester didn’t convert."

The many night meetings and homework required of Tom, and Diane’s position as Continuing Medical Educational Coordinator at Beaumont, restrict opportunities for civic and social activities, although Diane belongs to the Lions Club and Tom is a member of the Kiwanis Club, and they show up together at such events as the Memorial Day Pancake Breakfast – before Tom had to break away to go to the parade reviewing stand. As it develops, former Royal Oak DPS Director Steve Gillette, and his wife, Karen, now realtors, sold the Hoovers their house and remain  friends.

Neither staff nor local officials are part of the Hoover’s social life, although one city commissioner and spouse did treat the Hoovers to dinner at the Eastern Market soon after they arrived in Royal Oak.

Returning to the almost celebrity status of a city manager in Worcester, Diane recalled that Tom’s colleagues and city residents took a while to become accustomed to his preference for “direct talk, which some interpreted as being blunt.” I commented that Tom quickly displayed that characteristic in his first CITCOM meetings, in marked contrast to the demeanor of Royal Oak’s former city manager who sat quietly through most meetings.

Diane gave me a clue or two to help me determine moment-to-moment whether Tom is bored or angry, intensely involved or mentally somewhere else. But I won’t tell. -- 13 June 07

From Diane

Tom and I met through Parents without Partners in Toledo, Ohio, some 17 years ago and rapidly became each other’s best friend.  We were married on June 11^th in 1994 with all of our children as attendants. Our honeymoon was short-lived – two nights at Salt Fork State Park, and then back to Toledo to meet the movers and begin our trek to Worcester to begin our new lives together.

We share a love of exploration and strive to use every moment of our precious spare time to discover new places and things to do.

We are blessed with seven beautiful children, Jeff, Jon, Carrie, Lynne, Jay, Chad, and (you have to love combined families) another Jeff! They have given us the honor of the title and role of grandparents seven times over the past 5 years.

See what Tom had to say about some of these same matters in his previous conversation with VersagiVoice.

List of Coffee Conversations