Haidous.

WAYNE — An immigrant arrives in the United States, opens a small business, becomes involved in the community and gets elected as a councilman in his small town. Then, he successfully runs for mayor and 13 years later moves on to become a county commissioner. 

Mayor Abdul “Al” Haidous maintains that his story is a testament to the genuineness of the American Dream.

“Only in America this can happen,” he said of his career. “We are all protected by the same Constitution. I have no doubt in my mind this is the greatest system on earth.”

Haidous, 71, left Lebanon for Senegal in 1959 and a decade later, he came to Michigan, where he opened a grocery store in Wayne. 

As a small business owner, he started participating in the public life of the city and was honored by Wayne’s chamber of commerce and assigned to a commission on downtown revitalization. In 1993, friends recommended that he runs for the city council.

He said once the idea was suggested, he could not stop thinking about it. 

“Politics is like a bug. Once it gets into your head, it is hard to get it out,” he told The Arab American News in an interview last month. 

Haidous said he asked for his wife, Balssam’s, approval to seek the office because she had to carry most of the burden in operating the family business when he was busy with city affairs. 

Balssam, who is also known in Wayne as “Mary”, gave Haidous the go-ahead, and he started his political journey.

In November 2001, he became first directly elected mayor of the town of 17,000. Next week, he will step down from his post to ready himself to take his seat as a Wayne County Commissioner. He was elected to the Commission, which is the legislative body of the county, in the August primary and ran unopposed in the general election. 

Haidous said he decided to run for county commissioner to offer his expertise at a larger scale and open the door for new blood to continue the work in Wayne.

“I’ve been involved in local government for 21 years, not including the time I volunteered, and was on commissions for eight years before that,” he said. “I moved to Wayne 41 years ago and I loved the people. At this point, I wanted to allow the city to have a new leadership, who will always get my support to keep the city moving in the right direction of progress and prosperity. The commission would give me something to do on a larger scale.”

Haidous said balancing the budget will be a priority for him at the county.

“The county is facing economic problems, which create functional problems sometimes, like the roads, like the sewage,” he said. “If you don’t have a balanced budget, it’s going to affect the county’s services, like the judiciary system.” 

He added that his approach will be to suggest solutions that work best for his constituents.

“I’ll be one vote out of 15 commissioners,” he said. “My voice will always be based on what’s good for the people I serve. I will use the same formula I’ve been using as a mayor: You don’t compromise the integrity of the job for anything. You just do your job the way you think is right for the people, not how it serves certain interest groups or yourself or anybody. That’s my mission.”

Prior to Haidous’ first term as mayor, the city council members used to elect the mayor. But a ballot proposal amended the city charter to allow residents to elect the mayor directly in 2001. 

The mayor highlighted the impact of the recession on Wayne. He said while the world’s financial systems took a hard hit in 2008, Wayne was especially affected because of its industrial economy. Wayne is home to two Ford Motor Company plants. 

“The value of the property went down 43.6 percent in the city of Wayne,” Haidous said. “That took us from a $23-million budget to $14.7 million. The mayor, the manager and the council were united to protect vital services. We needed to keep a safe and clean city. We can’t compromise the safety.”

Haidous added that although about 50 percent of the full-time jobs in the city were eliminated, he and the council managed to safeguard essential services and balance the budget. The Wayne is debt-free, according to Haidous.

The mayor expressed his fondness for the people of Wayne, who, he said, always treated him as one of them, never as an outsider. 

“I see myself as an American,” Haidous said. “I am proud of my ethnicity. I’m proud of who I am. We should never forget where we came from. But at the same time, we must remember where we are and remember our responsibilities to the people around us.”

Haidous was elected mayor a few months after the 9/11 attacks. He said his ethnicity did not affect the voters’ perception of his credentials. 

He added that he was going quell his campaign activities in respect for the victims of the tragedy.

“A friend told me, ‘You don’t need a campaign. You have been in this town for more than 30 years,’” he said. “‘People know who you are and they’re going to vote based on what they know about you, not what happened anywhere else in the world. You are who you are and what happens elsewhere does not add to your goodness or badness.’ His words gave me a sense of comfort.”

The key to success, according to Haidous, is to be a perpetual student and admitting ignorance of what you don’t know in order to learn it. 

“When you are open to education, the sky is the limit,” he said.

Haidous will step down on Nov. 18 to start preparing for his job on the commission. He takes office on Jan. 2.