Community is everything for this Athens City Council member.
Athens City Councilwoman Michele Papai, D-3rd Ward, has always said she was destined to live on U.S. Route 33.
After living in South Bend, Indiana; Harrisonburg, Virginia; and now Athens; she is not only connected by the highway, but also by a sense of family, no matter where she’s been.
“When you move into a place, you seek a community,” she said. “I like to be around people or be with people.”
Her son, Will Drabold is campus staff editor at The Post and an Ohio University student, where her husband, David Drabold, is a distinguished professor of physics.
Papai said she traces that sense of belonging back to her childhood, growing up the oldest of five siblings — and many more cousins — in an Eastern European family. This experience not only helped her to develop a sense of heritage and tradition, but also a sense of leadership and compromise.
“It really prepares you (for life in public office),” she said. “There’s always a debate… and then you’ve got to come to a decision and stick with it. You do get preparation for life.”
After graduating from Indiana University in 1979, she got her graduate degree in criminology from James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, another town on Route 33.
She moved to Athens in 1993 to work as a child and adolescent health therapist, but it wasn’t long before she got involved in city politics.
Papai said, within a few years, she joined the Athens Near Northside Neighborhood Association, which advocated for what she called “quality of life issues” in the city.
“When you’re living in a neighborhood and you’re out and about … those things sort of pull you together,” she said. “We decided that we all needed to get together and be proactive.”
From there, she began going to meetings between residents and then-mayor Ric Abel. She became involved, along with then-councilman and current Mayor Paul Wiehl, in a group called Clear Litter Everywhere in Athens Now, or CLEAN, which eventually became known as Keep Athens Clean and Beautiful, a local affiliate of the nonprofit group Keep America Beautiful.
Since her election to city council in 2011, Papai said, litter and graffiti have continued to be some of her major concerns. Although she chairs council’s transportation committee, Papai said she is perhaps more proud of her efforts to improve the city’s cleanliness and its “curb appeal.”
She has been active in city council’s recent effort to set clearer regulations on where resident store their trash.
“This is often what people see first and it makes an impression that often isn’t forgotten,” she said.
Other council members maintain Papai still has been instrumental in her role as transportation committee chair.
“I think she’s doing a great job,” said Chris Knisely, D-at large, who held the position before her. “She stepped right up and became involved in all the areas of transportation.”
Councilman Kent Butler, D-1st ward, works with Papai on the transportation committee and has known her for almost two decades — both from living in the same neighborhood and their shared work in mental health counseling.
“It’s fairly obvious that Michele cares about our community,” he said. “Most of us (on council) are not all defined by a single context, and she is the epitome of that… she is involved in many different things and she’s all-in.”
Papai, whose salary on council is $7,537, said she does not have any plans after she has finished serving on council. Her current term ends December 2015. But when all is said and done, she hopes to have been an effective member of her town off of Route 33.
“I feel I can be effective and continue to be involved in some long lasting impact in the community,” she said.
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