"The city that is alive is never completed and always needs work. Just as natural systems cannot be taken for granted nor distant suffering long ignored, so the institutions of free people cannot exist unwatched and untended. The safety of liberty rests upon the everyday duties of life, the willingness of citizens to pursue the common good, to teach their children well, to defend justice, to be stewards of the planet, and to respect each other."
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Jim Ellis
"Jim Ellis’ memoir is a first-hand account of his life and, more importantly, the epic civic work done in Seattle in the 1950s-1980s centering on regional governance, community infrastructure, environmental clean-up, open space and farmland preservation, mass transit and more. It’s a tale of persistence, success, failure, and unexpected leadership: how a municipal bonds lawyer helped bring about some of the greatest material improvements to greater Seattle since the New Deal. It’s the ultimate insider’s view on how our civic sausage was made in the half-century after WWII, with lessons for today."
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Knute Berger, Editor-at-Large, Cascade PBS
"A Will to Serve is the remarkable story of the quintessential civic leader whose life was a portrait of “service beyond self.” Jim Ellis is the model for all of us laboring in the vineyards of civic life as volunteers, and his words resonate today more than ever. The breadth of his influence over the region for four decades is, of course, legendary. But hearing his own thoughts on the many initiatives he led or engaged with inspires us today as our corner of the world experiences yet another phase shift. His formula of patience, persistence, people, and listening is still the recipe for creating a community that is vibrant and equitable while embracing our natural beauty and complex human heritage. His words echo into our time: “The city that is alive is never completed and always needs work."
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Maggie Walker, Chair, Friends of Waterfront Park
"Jim Ellis was one of the biggest citizens this country ever produced. If you want a master class on how to practice power for the common good, read this book. If you want to understand how a local culture of trust, responsibility-taking, and can-do civic spirit can radiate out to national-level impact, read this book. And if you want to see with new eyes the institutions, infrastructure, and environment that we all take for granted, read this book. This is a story for our times."
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Eric Liu, CEO of Citizen University and author of Become America