Our profession keeps a calendar most people never see. Fiscal years. Bond terms. Pavement lives. Pipes laid this spring will still carry water when our grandchildren are paying the utility bill. We plan in spans longer than any contract we will ever sign.

And yet the asset that decides whether any of it works never appears on a balance sheet. That asset is public trust.

No one hands it to us with the job. We earn it in small, often unnoticed increments: a returned call, an honest answer at the podium, a project delivered when we said it would be. Then, on one hard day, we find out how much we have.

This year, as your ICMA president, I have had the privilege of seeing how managers earn it in places very different from my own. I have joined state association meetings, conference hallways, and regional gatherings around the world. Everywhere I went, colleagues made room for me. They offered coffee, candor, and stories they had no obligation to share. To every state, national, and international member association that welcomed me, thank you. Your gracious reception made every visit feel like a reunion among friends, and I will carry those conversations with me long after this term ends.

Those conversations taught me something. Trust has an architecture. It is designed on purpose, tested under load, and maintained by people like you.

Long before our profession existed, the people of Athens swore an oath to leave their city greater, better, and more beautiful than they found it. I cannot think of a better job description for a city or county manager. That oath asks more of us than upkeep. It asks us to look at what is broken in our communities, refuse to call it permanent, and earn the trust that makes improvement possible.

That work rarely moves at the pace we want. We meet deadlines, answer to councils, and field an endless stream of requests. In the rush, it is tempting to mistake motion for progress. We fill the pothole, answer the angriest email, and move on to the next fire. Speed feels productive. Trust grows on its own schedule.

Every balanced budget, every clean glass of water, every well-lit street corner is a small deposit into an account the community keeps on us. No one writes a headline about the audit that came back clean or the permit issued on time. Those moments still count. Leadership is less a race than a practice of compounding. Steady, reliable competence earns interest.

And we will need every cent of it. Our communities are more divided than many of us have ever seen, and those national divisions now show up at the local podium. When disaster strikes — a flood, a budget shortfall, a public safety crisis — residents want to know the water is safe, the shelter is open, and someone steady is in charge. The urgency can make it feel as though there is no time to deliberate.

That is precisely the moment to steady your pace. You still have to decide, and you cannot govern by opinion poll. What you can do is spend the trust you saved.

Theodore Roosevelt gave the credit to the one actually in the arena: the one who strives, stumbles, and gets up to try again, rather than the critic in the stands. The critic can walk away when the meeting ends. You stay, and you answer for the outcome.

Holding steady through a crisis is half of our responsibility. The other half is seeing past it, and that is where the Athenian oath returns to us.

It is easy to look at aging water systems, a housing shortage, or long-standing economic disparity and file them under the cost of doing business. Maintaining what we inherited is stewardship. Improving it is leadership. Our communities need both, and they are counting on us for the second. Making a community better means taking calculated risks, trying new approaches, and questioning the way things have always been done. New ideas draw skeptics, and skeptics draw controversy. But managers who have spent years earning public trust have earned the room to try.

Each of us holds this position for a reason. In the story of Esther, she hears that perhaps she came to her position for such a time as this. The same may be true of you. If not you, then who? Who else will guard the public trust? Who else will hold the community steady when the ground shifts?

In the months ahead, do more than keep things running. Hold to your convictions, guard the public trust at all costs, and lead with courage when it counts.

Dr. King reminded us that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. Our job is to help bend it toward equity, safety, and truth for the people we serve.

Every structure depends on its supports, and this year I leaned on many.

To Julia Novak, our executive director, and the entire ICMA team: Thank you for your professionalism, your creativity, and the care you bring to serving our members every day. 

To Tanya Ange, our past president, and Andy Pederson, our president-elect: Sharing this presidential journey with you has been one of the great gifts of my career. And to my colleagues on the ICMA Executive Board, thank you for your service, your commitment, and the joy you brought to our work on behalf of the Association.

Closer to home, I am grateful to Mayor Wes Mays, the Coppell city council, and our entire City of Coppell organization. You supported this commitment from the start, showed real patience with my travel schedule, and kept our community moving forward while I was on the road. Your service makes me proud to serve Coppell.

Most of all, thank you to my wife, Lisa, and our family. You shared me with this profession for these past two years (with one more to go!) and you did it with grace. Your patience, your commitment, and your love made every mile worth traveling.

In just a few weeks, we will gather in Long Beach, California, for the ICMA Annual Conference, and I cannot wait to see you there. Come ready to learn, to reconnect with old friends, and to meet the colleagues you will call on in the years ahead. I look forward to shaking your hand.

Serving as your president has been the honor of my professional life.

With respect and appreciation,

Mike Land, City Manager, Coppell, Texas
ICMA President