Hassell Reflects On Quiet Deeds Street Building His Likely Legacy

People will be running over Al Hassell’s legacy for years to come.

That’s because history probably will remember him for “very little, except for streets,” he says.

As for Hassell, today is just another day, even though he worked his last day as the Lake City’s mayor Tuesday.

“I don’t think being mayor changed me,” he said. “I don’t think not being mayor will change me.”

Such low-key responses are what’s expected from Hassell, who prefers to labor behind the scenes, build consensus and then quietly press forward. Such nuts-and-bolts issues are his trademark, and, he admits, not very glitzy.

Hassell abandoned the insurance and financial services operation he owns with Judy Anderson for his first six months in the mayor’s office so he could help sell taxpayers on the bond issue that pulled Coeur d’Alene streets out of the gutter. After eight years on the City Council, he figured city infrastructure was in a rut.

His proudest accomplishments sound like a snoozer syllabus for a ninth-grade civics class: more parks, more streets and better streets, more automation in City Hall, more police, laptop computers in patrol cars and lower taxes.

The quiet, gracious 54-year-old Hassell also is proud of helping keep Independence Point from becoming a parking lot and creating a balance between growth and quality of life.

“I’m a local resident and taxpayer first,” Hassell said. “I looked at everything from a long-term effect. Sometimes that’s not always expedient for the political moment. Government should be a balancing act, so that everyone pays their fair share.”

There are no regrets, says Hassell, not even losing to Steve Judy by 67 votes. “I might still be in office if I campaigned harder. I had to make choices between things that had to be done and campaigning,” he said.

The to-do list included helping take care of his stroke-stricken mother-in-law, creating the Urban Renewal Commission, fighting a lingering case of the flu. Put that up against a little bit of voter apathy and a well-financed, high-profile candidate and the result probably is predictable.

But little fazes Hassell, who learned to run hurdles quite young. His father - a pilot - was killed just two weeks after World War II ended when his single-engine aircraft collided with a bomber.

Hassell lived in 17 states growing up but calls Spokane home because it’s the place his family always returned to when his stepfather, also a military man, headed overseas. He graduated from North Central High in Spokane and turned down an appointment to the Naval Academy.

His photographic memory made him a lazy student, without the study habits to get him through Annapolis. Instead he attended Washington State University and what then was a junior college in Everett.

He parlayed a job sweeping floors in a retail store to sales, graduated to vacuum cleaners and built a sales force of 55 and a territory from Everett to north Seattle. Eventually he worked for a loan company that transferred him to Coeur d’Alene in 1970.

Hassell soon joined the Jaycees, and has been elbow deep in civic service since.

Without the mayor’s job, he said he will miss the city employees and the rush of new challenges. Sundays once spent poring over city documents now can go to his computer hobby and his family.

“My family has been pretty tolerant for 12 years,” Hassell said of his time on the council and as mayor. And he’s promised his wife he won’t make new commitments for a year.

However, he will continue to work in his church and to serve on the Urban Renewal Commission.

And, in the end, Al Hassell will continue to be just plain Al. He shrugs.

“I’m not a rah-rah person,” he said. “I got a lot more accomplished that way.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo