I owe belated thanks to Saybrook College Dean Paul McKinley for deciding in the summer of 2007 to place Mike Jones ’11 and me in the same cramped suite in Lanman-Wright Hall. Mike and I grew to be close friends, and I consider myself lucky to have lived with him for all four years of college.

In part that’s for the obvious reasons: We struggled to build IKEA furniture together, complained about problem sets to each other and watched more Law & Order episodes than I can remember. But when I think back on our time at Yale, I remember most of all hearing Mike talk on the phone with his fellow aldermen about the City Charter and eating at Buffalo Wild Wings with him after a heated community policing meeting at City Hall. I remember the day he told me New Haven was starting to feel like home, even if its sweet tea can’t compare to that of his native North Carolina.

Say what you will about the Elm City’s government and its Board of Aldermen. But nobody who has been paying attention for the past two years can deny that Mike Jones gave his all — and then some — as Ward 1 alderman. For that, we should applaud him.

Paul Needham

Nov. 8

The writer is a 2011 graduate of Saybrook college and a former editor in chief of the News.