Executive News
___________________________________________________________________________
05/04/1994
________________________________________________________________________________
STAFF UPDATE
May 4, 1994
* Telephone Surveys - We've enclosed the latest library telephone surveys along with the calendars for May and June.
Email Hint - WordPerfect Email doesn't work very well when your IN and OUT boxes are full or nearly so. It works much better if you can keep the number of messages in each down to around 100. As much as we send back and forth, that's hard to do, but a thorough edit every other week or so should help.
Contacts with State Agencies - I am making two changes to our operating policy.
1) This applies when your work requires that you send written memos or letters to a state agency or official. Please be sure that you discuss the contents of the communication with me before it is sent to the state agency. Also, show a carbon copy to me on all such communication.
2) You need talk to me in advance before you talk to state officials when it is outside of your normal area. This is hard to define. Most consultants have an ongoing relationship and discussions with several state officials. Often, that relationship goes back many years. These are the people that you would consider your professional colleagues. I'm not so concerned about the ongoing relationships as I am about changes in those discussions and new contacts. I particularly need to know in advance about discussions with state officials at the executive assistant, deputy director and above levels. When in doubt, call me first. Thanks.
System Visit - Dr. Joe Johnson and his staff's visit to the Knoxville office went very well. Carol and JoeM made excellent presentations. The highlights were the presentations by the cities of Knoxville, Chattanooga, and Clinton. Mayor Ashe and his staff from the public services department reviewed the results of our two studies in 1990 and 1994. Mayor Roberts and the staff of the parks and recreation department detailed the progress and all the awards the city has won since our comprehensive study. Steve Queener, city manager, reminded us that MTAS works for small and medium size cities like Clinton, too.
We don't receive compliments like these easily. In each case they were earned by a lot of hard work by MikeT, JoeM, the members of the east team and all the other consultants who were part of these projects, stretching back to Tom Brant in 1989! Thanks to everyone.
Date