McLean's 'Mayors Club' is the talk of the town
By Monty Tayloe
In the bar area of the Ocean M restaurant in McLean, a desperate struggle for power rages.
“I'm the mayor!” declares McLean financial planner Bill DuBose.
“No, he's the mayor!” says McLean Citizens Foundation President Patricia Butler, gesturing toward a grinning Tom Jacobi, owner of Langley Image Center.
“I used to be the mayor of Great Falls,” says Darren Ewing, of Ewing Wealth Management, further confusing the issue.
War seems imminent but instead everyone giggles, and reaches for cocktails and hors d'oeuvres.
In fact, Great Falls has no mayor, and until recently, neither did McLean. Now it has about 150, and they all show up to the monthly happy hour of “the Mayors Club,” a loose group of McLean professionals and friends who enjoy hanging out together and pretending to hold elected office.
“It's just a big group of friends,” explains Jacobi, who organizes the event. Jacobi is also the person most people mean when they refer to the “Mayor of McLean.”
“He just knows everybody,” explains Adrienne Whyte, of the MCF.
It's clear that the Mayor's Club is more than a happy hour. Business cards fly back and forth faster than attendees can claim to be the mayor, and groups like the MCF make sure their brochures are prominently displayed.
Lorna Gross and Gretchen Ginnerty attended their first Mayor's Club on Friday, and not just for the canapes.
“It's absolutely a great place to network and meet people,” said Ginnerty, who owns her own business.
“I'd heard about it before. ... It's things like this that make McLean feel like a small town,” says Anne Harden, also attending her first Mayor's Club.
The first-timers were all invited by e-mail, a requirement to attend. For all of its happy-go -lucky feel, the Mayor's Club is somewhat exclusive. It's held at a different location each month, and if you're not on Jacobi's list, you won't find out where. Other than the e-mail list, the group has a surprising lack of officialness for all of the executive titles.
“No rules and no speeches!" Jacobi, the organizer of the monthly event, intones several times. Once, he even adds “no press” to this litany, but when The Times pointed out that this was a clear contradiction of the no rules clause, he backed off.
Hopefully, he was kidding.