Fung meets his match

THE EASY PART OF THE VISIT: Mayor Allan Fung was a Reading Week guest reader at Eden Park Elementary School in Lisa Salisbury’s third grade class. He read aloud the book, “The Day the Earth was Silent,” and then took questions from the students about his job. He did not expect the class to be quite as knowledgeable and inquisitive as they were about so many civic topics, but took the time to answer each and every question asked, answering them at the students' level.

(Herald photos by Jen Cowart)

The Cranston Herald · Thursday, June 8, 2017 2:18 pm

By Jen Cowart

On a recent visit to Eden Park Elementary School during Reading Week, Mayor Allan Fung had the opportunity to read to the third-graders in Lisa Salisbury’s classroom. The mayor read the story, The Day the Earth Was Silent, a book about a group of children who work together to change the world, moving from their classroom to the local level, national level and eventually affecting change for the entire world. The book was dedicated to Christa McAulliffe, a teacher-astronaut who lost her life in the Space Shuttle Challenger tragedy in 1986. The book most fitting for this year’s Reading Week theme, Make the World a Better Place.

After reading the book aloud, Fung told the students that it was his wish too, that one day every state, city, and the entire world would have a moment of silence, just as had happened in the book. He thought that the book’s messages of trying and believing in one’s dreams, of never giving up no matter where you go, to always believe in oneself, were all valuable messages and applicable throughout one’s lifetime.

From there, Mayor Fung welcomed the students’ questions, and they were, in fact, ready for him. Each student had come up with questions they were eager to find out the answers to. The questions ranged from those that are often typical for Fung’s elementary school visits, such as how he became mayor or what a typical day looks like when in the role of mayor, how old he was and if he had any children yet, to those less typical, such as where the city’s stream of revenue comes from and what to do if the city were to go bankrupt, or questions which asked the mayor to explain the difference between a Democrat and a Republican, to explain why Hillary Clinton lost the last election and to discuss the different branches of government and their responsibilities.

Mayor Fung was impressed, and somewhat surprised, by the third-graders’ knowledge of the many civic subjects they raised, given their age, as well as their investment in wanting to further understand the topics they questioned him about. He spoke to them at a student level, though raising the bar a little bit in order to meet them where they were at, and praised them for their knowledge and their understanding as well as their interest. He spoke to the students about the electoral college, how it works and why it is in place, and about whose role in the legislative system it is to make laws, versus who is responsible for enforcing the laws. He also reassured them about the city and its fiscal situation.

“Although the city was almost bankrupt when I was on the City Council, before I became mayor, we are in better shape now,” he said. “We were not in great shape when I started and we had to make some very tough decisions, there were some very tough times, and I was not very popular with some of those decisions. Now however, we have a very healthy, $20 million rainy day fund and we have a $285 million city budget and we are in much better shape. As mayor, it’s my job to make sure that we do the right thing and spend that money properly.”

When asked whether or not he himself was rich, Fung laughed at first, but in seriousness, spoke about the riches in his life, rather than monetary gain.

“I have a great family that I love, I have people that care about me,” he said. “I love them and financially, I make a good living, but no, I am not rich.”