At the start of last Thursday’s meeting, the members of Lexington City Council each shared thoughts and memories about Frank Friedman and his tenure as mayor of Lexington.
“Frank was a dear friend and a ray of sunshine every day in Lexington, even when it was raining,” Vice-Mayor Marylin Alexander said. “I keep thinking of things I would want to share with him or bounce off of him, and then I suddenly realize we don’t have him here anymore.”
She specifically mentioned waiting for the regular phone call Friedman would make the day before each Council meeting, which did not come last Wednesday.
“We are all experiencing moments [like this], and I am confident that he has left us with a special gift,” she said. “That gift is that we are all going to be stronger together, finding our new normal.”
Nicholas Betts said that Friedman was “one of the nicest guys I ever met.”
“He’s the kind of guy who, if you were having car trouble, he would drop what he was doing and come pick you up,” he said. “He just had such a positive attitude and he really led with that as mayor.”
John Driscoll highlighted Freidman’s willingness to take time for everyone who needed or wanted to speak with him, and how that spoke to his character as a person and as a mayor.
“He had a remarkable ability to make everyone feel welcome, whether you were in Lexington or on city council,” he said. “Drawing on his experience, his institutional knowledge [and] his wide network, he helped ease difficult debates and move us toward better solutions for the city and the region.”
David Sigler said that Friedman was “truly an excellent mayor to work with and a friend that I value.” He also commented on Friedman’s dedication to advocating for the interests of Lexington and the Rockbridge area at the state level.
“We truly punched above our weight with Frank serving as mayor,” he said. “The region – Rockbridge County, Buena Vista and Lexington – is better off for his leadership statewide.”
Sigler also spoke of Friedman’s humility and how he would “always deflect the compliment,” whenever Sigler paid him one about a speech he gave at a public event.
“He could never accept the compliment,” he said. “He would always deflect it to city staff, he would deflect it to staff, [or] he would deflect it to the group he was speaking to. There were so many good people and entities in Lexington that he would deflect compliments to them.”
Leslie Straughan said that Friedman had “a servant’s heart,” and recalled many discussions she had with him over the years about various topics.
“I think our discussions were best when we disagreed on a topic, because he wanted to understand both sides to a topic so that we could come to a resolution that everybody could embrace,” she said. “He wanted to make sure everyone was pleased with the outcome because he understood [the community] was all of ours…and we should all be proud of Lexington and our local government, and he worked hard on that. I hope that’s something we can continue.”
Chuck Smith said that the “outpouring of words and messages,” since Friedman’s passing on July 2, as well as the memorial service held for Friedman at Lexington Presbyterian Church on July 10 “demonstrates the size of the role that he played in our city.”
“He was kind of bigger than life in a lot of ways,” he said. “He’s left a big hole to fill and this council has a huge task ahead of us to minimize the impact of this loss.”
