Editor’s note: Tom Nardelli, who served as a Milwaukee alderman and as chief of staff for Gov. Scott Walker when Walker was Milwaukee County executive, passed away on Sept. 1.
Shortly after Scott Walker was elected governor in 2010, I decided to pay Tom Nardelli a visit. I was running the office of the council president in city hall, and he was still running the county executive’s. My thought was to learn what I could from him before the Walker administration was out the door.
He kindly accepted my request to meet, but…
Although the gubernatorial election had only been a few weeks before and Walker was still (technically) county executive, every office was cleaned out – including Walker’s. Aside from one administrative assistant fielding calls, he was completely alone. But that was enough for him to make a pitch.
“You don’t really want to work for Lee Holloway,” Nardelli was saying, perched on the assistant’s desk out front, when I arrived.
She stared back at him blankly, and he motioned me in without turning away from her.
“I know you’d never want to work for him, so how ‘bout I just tell him?”
I have no idea what that woman at the front desk ended up doing, but I do know one thing – the interaction I encountered was pure Tom Nardelli. Straightforward. Confident. Direct. Assertive.
Or, if you prefer: Brash. Pushy. Aggressive. Overbearing.
Depending on who you asked, you’d get one assortment of adjectives or the other.
But whether you were a fan of Nardelli or a critic, you never had to wonder where he stood on anything, because he always gave his honest opinion. He was passionate about his family, his city and his country. And he let you know it.
I still recall some snippets of our friendly conversation that day, as we sat in his nearly empty office, chatting across his completely empty desk. He told me:
• If you took the worst city alderman, he or she would still be better organized and more professional than the best county supervisor.
• Society – including many elected officials – no longer appreciated the value of decorum, respect or courtesy.
• Government is more important than politics any day of the week, but most people don’t know the difference.
• He never left the Democratic Party, but the Democratic Party left him.
• Scott Walker ordered Saz’s catering too frequently for events (Nardelli even told me, “I’m sick of it!”) but, according to him, Walker did it because he met his wife there.
Nardelli had not yet been offered a state position, and he said he was waiting by the phone – literally – in the hopes of getting one. Eventually that call came, but he resigned after only a few months of state employment, saying, “I began to have misgivings about my decision.”
Again, he was an honest man who always attempted to give honest answers. He never stopped saying or doing what he thought was best for our community – even when it meant reaching out to the district attorney to investigate internal wrongdoing in the county exec’s own office.
At the end of the day, Tom Nardelli never tried to be anyone other than Tom Nardelli. No one else could ever be that, and no one else ever will.
Alex Runner is a Milwaukee writer.
