The Treaty Signed in Silence
I had been to several meetings at the City of Central Point. I stood up, made my case, thought I held my own. But when the city responded—Stephanie Powers stepped up. And she did not hold back.
She grilled me. She challenged everything I said. She defended the institution with a level of professionalism that could make any citizen feel like they’d overstepped. She didn’t smile. She didn’t soften. She was good—really good. And even though it rattled me, I knew she was doing exactly what the people expected of her.
But I kept coming back. Not to fight—to understand. I started showing up on days when there weren’t meetings. I’d talk to her in passing. Always respectful. Always willing to listen. One day, I asked if we could sit down. She agreed.
We talked for over two hours.
It wasn’t a debate. It was something much rarer—a real, measured conversation between two people on very different sides of the same city. She asked real questions. I gave honest answers. We didn’t agree on everything, but something happened in that room that day. We met each other in the middle.
At the end of our talk, she told me to come back the next day. That she had the two public records documents I had been requesting. Documents that I knew the city had—documents I wasn’t supposed to get.
I showed up. I brought my Red Cross manual and my pocket Constitution. Not to show off—just habit. I handed them to her without thinking. But she didn’t hand them back. She looked at them. Really looked. She read the pages. The creases. The notes I’d scribbled in the margins. I stood there, hand out, waiting. But she kept reading.
At the time, I thought she was stalling. Or maybe trying to make a point. But now I realize—she was studying me. Not in judgment, but in reflection. She saw what I was trying to do. She saw that I wasn’t there to win—I was there to serve something bigger than either of us. And she made a choice.
When she handed me those documents, she didn’t say anything dramatic. She didn’t break ranks. She just gave them to me. But it wasn’t a transaction. It was a transfer of trust. A handoff between someone sworn to protect the city and someone trying to protect its future.
"The truth is, I didn’t know how to talk to politicians. Or women. Or anyone in a position like hers. But she listened anyway. And when it mattered most, she responded without saying a word."
Stephanie Powers may never get public credit for what she did. And she may not want it. She still works in that building. Still shows up every day with the weight of it all. But this is part of the record now. She was there. She acted. And history changed, quietly, because she did.
There are people like her in every town. You may not see them. They may not speak loudly. But they are watching. Listening. Deciding.
This is for them. And for the day when silence gives way to understanding, and understanding becomes the first treaty we ever sign.