Bob Ray says that when he passed the Des Moines mayor’s gavel to Preston Daniels in 1997, the city was desperately in need not only of leadership – the late Arthur Davis served about 16 months of a 48-month term before he resigned due to declining health – but also of vision.

Daniels supplied both, said Ray, a former Iowa governor who led the city for about seven months after Davis resigned and before Daniels was sworn in as the new mayor in November 1997. Daniels, Des Moines’ first black mayor, leaves office on Jan. 2, when Mayor-elect Frank Cownie will be sworn in.

“The biggest problem was vision,” Ray said. “Des Moines is a city that was on the brink of wanting to do better things, more things and bigger things, but we hadn’t gotten there yet.”

Nowhere has Daniels vision been more clearly illustrated than with the resurrection of an idea to merge the Polk County and Des Moines city governments, said David Oman, who co-chaired with Daniels the ad hoc committee the mayor appointed to study the issue in 2001. Daniels backed up his vision with bold action, Oman said.

“He showed great courage in rolling the idea of city-county consolidation into the public square,” Oman said. “He didn’t need to do that, but chose to stand up on that issue. Some would say he sacrificed his career.

“I truly believe he thought it was a good idea, and he was willing to lean in and make it happen. There were some who thought it was because of his would-be aspirations [to lead the merged government as its mayor], but he took that issue away [by deciding against seeking another term]. That said a lot.”

Whether Daniels’ vision for consolidated government is shared by other residents of Des Moines and Polk County won’t be known until November 2004. The plan that will go before voters is a scaled back version of a metrowide charter proposal that failed miserably in the 1990s.

Daniels also fostered better relationships with leaders of Des Moines’ suburbs through the Metropolitan Council, a group of mayors and city council members from Central Iowa that looks at ways to share in the cost of municipal services and facilities.

“He worked hard to facilitate better understanding amongst the mayors concerning our common issues and individual issues,” West Des Moines Mayor Gene Meyer said. “He was always willing to state his position, but listen to alternative points of view as well.

“By opening himself up to dialogue with the suburbs, he became appreciative of the added value that we could bring to the Greater Des Moines area.”

Daniels also established the Urban Summit, a forum that brings together the mayors of Iowa’s 10 largest cities and adjacent suburbs to address perplexing municipal issues, among them land-use policies, the effect of the residential tax rollback on city budgets, historic renovation, in-fill tax credits and cultural attraction funds. Daniels has supported ideas such as tax-base sharing and other incentives aimed at “stopping local governments from trying to kill each other” as they work to attract new businesses.

Oman said Daniels led the city during difficult financial times, especially as other governmental entities began reducing their aid to local governments. “It’s easy for the federal government to pass some of the buck down to the state, and fore the state to roll it down,” Oman said. “It truly does stop at the local level. The city has had to make some tough decisions, and he hasn’t shied away from that.”

Daniels has ushered the city through a period of unprecedented development, with more than $1.5 billion in public and private construction either completed, under way or planned for the future. The city’s downtown is going through its greatest renaissance ever, and though Daniels says the projects are not his accomplishments, but those of the six City Council members and staff, his champions say he helped create an atmosphere of civility that made it possible for leaders to tackle big projects.

“If you look at the council, they work together as a team under Preston as mayor, and that’s not something that has always been there,” said 4th Ward Councilwoman Chris Hensley, who has served on the City Council for a decade. At a special City Council ceremony on Dec. 22, Hensley said Daniels often communicated non-verbally with a look that said, “I know what you are thinking and don’t say it.”

Daniels, Ray said, “deserves that credit.”

“As we refer back, this will be remembered as a period of time when Des Moines was popping its head up again,” Ray said. “Preston encouraged and led people into making Des Moines a more vibrant and progressive and better city.”

Through it all, his congeniality and communication skills have become his trademarks of leadership, said many who attended the Dec. 22 ceremony honoring his 12 years – half as a councilman and half as mayor – of service to Des Moines. “He has time for everybody,” Urbandale Mayor Brad Zaun said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a CEO, resident or someone who is down on his luck.”

“This person has character, he has integrity, he has intelligence,” Ray said. “Everybody’s important, no matter how small, how large, how young, how old, how wealthy, how poor. He’s leaving a legacy we will never forget.”

Daniels said his greatest contribution has been strengthening the voice of neighborhood activists, the people who convinced him more than a decade ago that the leadership skills he had displayed during his service to the Drake Neighborhood Association should be applied on the City Council. That prompted some fear on the part of residents and other city officials that “development would grind to a halt,” Councilman Chris Coleman said.

“Under your watch,” Coleman said to the mayor at the Dec. 22 event, “development didn’t grind to a stop. We’re on the road to becoming one of the greatest cities in America.”

Daniels responded with the humility that friends and other leaders have come to appreciate. “Thank you for this opportunity for a kid who grew up in the Southeast Bottoms to serve as your mayor,” he said.