The Reading Habits of City Commission Candidates

This column was published October 17, 2025 in the Manhattan Mercury.

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You may like their firm handshake, direct eye contact or dazzling smile. You may appreciate their yard signs or Facebook pages. Even though Manhattan City Commission elections are non-partisan, a candidate’s political ideology may shape your thinking.

Or maybe your decision for whom to vote is driven by something more intangible. It’s hard to gauge candlepower from a yard sign. It’s not always easy to ascertain intellectual curiosity from a door hanger.  

Over the summer, I invited each of the nine candidates on your ballot for the Manhattan City Commission to appear on my live radio talk show, which you can also find as an unedited audio podcast on the News Radio KMAN website, or wherever you get podcasts.

My motivation was simple: an hour of dialogue with each to allow listeners to size them up. I don’t typically script these things, but given my motivation, I was purposeful in asking each of them a few of the same questions, including this one: “What book is currently on your nightstand?”

Here they are, in no particular order:

Martha Sweeney is reading “The Wild Muir: Twenty-two of John Muir’s Greatest Adventures.” Sweeney grew up in northern California and had recently returned from a backpacking trip in the High Sierras. “It’s fun reading his adventures but also appreciating that he was such an advocate for preserving what we have remaining of wilderness.”

You will find “Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect” by Will Guidara on Jayme Minton’s nightstand. Guidara was 26 when he took over Eleven Madison Park, a moribund brasserie in the Other Apple. Eleven years later, it was named the best restaurant in the world. “They provided the opportunity for all their staff to shine,” Minton reflected. “They gave them the opportunity to be successful and that’s something we should do more often.”

Retired attorney Jim Morrison didn’t share the title or author of his book, other than to say it deals with “religious issues of survival in the future.” Morrison wasn’t buying the author’s attempt to, as he characterized it, “convince some of us who are in the old school that there has to be a new attitude” about religion.

Speaking of religion, Peter Oppelt was polishing off “Jesus and John Wayne” by Kristin Kobes Du Mez. The book covers the history of American evangelicalism and discusses evangelical views on masculinity. Oppelt says he switches between nonfiction and fiction and his most recent fiction choice was “The Wheel of Time” high fantasy series by Robert Jordan.

Abena Taylor is knocking out “Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It” by Chris Voss, a hostage negotiator. “It’s definitely about active listening when you’re talking with someone,” Taylor said. “Making sure you’re trying to find what this person really wants and asking the right questions. He calls them ‘calibrated questions.’”

Amber Starling is also building her skills, through Simon Sinek’s “Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t.” Sinek dives into why some organizations do better than others by unpacking leadership. “The main idea is the circle of safety,” Starling recalled. “When you have people in an organization who feel safe, they’re able to operate at their best and bring their best selves to the table.”

In preparation for a trip to Greece this month with his in-laws, Andrew Von Lintel was reading travel books and boning up on Greek history. “Those Greek states fought and messed with each other all the time.”

Chalk up Scott Seel in the history column as well, with “Confronting the Presidents” by Bill O’Reilly. Seel says he finds more interest in the obscure presidents as opposed to those on legal tender. Millard Fillmore and Rutherford B. Hayes over Washington and Lincoln. Seel also cops to thinking of reading as time management. “When I do read, its typically after the kids go to bed. I do a lot of waking up with a book on my face.” 

Finally, there’s Larry Fox, who was nothing if not brutally honest. “Well, I must say I don’t do a lot of reading. I should read more books.”

Mike Matson’s column appears every other weekend in The Mercury, and he hosts ‘Within Reason,’ weekdays at 9 a.m. on NewsRadio KMAN.