Note to all in attendance at the recent Mayor’s Beautification Program’s 13th Annual Mayor’s Breakfast: Dick Greco will be a tough act to follow to any podium. Greco’s keynote address, sans notes, was another rhetorical tour de force.
While working in some speech staples, such as CIT benefits, the media’s skewed sense of newsworthiness and the dangers inherent in police work, Greco was nostalgic, funny, provocative, populist and inspirational. This, his next-to-last address to those involved in helping to beautify public areas, parks and streetscapes, was a reminder of how well he still holds an audience.
It was also a reminder that any would-be successor, several of whom were in attendance, should continue to take good notes.