11/25/2003

Here's an interesting web site - It's done by the son of the Mayor in Collinwood, but not really affiliated with the city. The URL is www.collinwoodnews.com.
Issue #30 covers the Collinwood council meeting of October 15. It concludes with the following:

the first reading of the budget was not addressed. Mayor Brewer explained after the meeting the city manager did not have sufficient time to meet with Mr. Phebus to prepare the budget

Sometimes I'm amazed. I suppose we often get coverage like this; but I don't often see it.

Dick Phebus wrote on November 4 that: "Just spoke with the city manager. The budget has been adopted and they are already collecting 2003 taxes. He said 'we are on a roll now'. While I did assist them with the budget process, thanks also go to Bill Young for the water rate study he compiled and Margaret Norris for the hands on instruction in municipal management given to the Mayor and the City Manager. Truly a team effort!"

Customer service - For many of us, the consultant is the customer. Jean McGowan certainly understands that. Here's an email from Ray explaining his recent tire dilemma.
Jean,
I want to Thank You for the wonderful manner that you worked to help me out in an emergency. I was on my way to Murfreesboro to speak to the TN Fire Safety Inspectors Conference (273 fire inspectors attended this year -- a record crowd) when my front tire on my UT car began bumping very badly. I stopped at a Firestone store and they said I could not drive the car for safety reasons. I called my wife and she brought me my personal pick-up truck to drive to Murfreesboro so that I could be on time for my portion of the program. While I was speaking in Murfreesboro, you worked out all the details between the Firestone place and UT transportation services. I did not have to worry about or do anything else. The next morning, I picked up the UT car and all I had to do was sign for the work. Thank you again for your help and support. You put the true meaning in "support staff". Please pass along my thanks to the people at Transportation Services. All of you worked hard to continue to allow me to serve Tennessee cities.
Ray Crouch, Sr.
Fire Department Management Consultant

Grant information - Here's a grant program Mary Taylor found. It might be of interest to a city or a leadership group in a city.
"One of the things our customers often need is assistance on finding grants to fund a variety of activities. The attached link is to the Ford Foundation's 'Leadership For A Changing World' grant program. They make 17 - 20 $100,000 awards to leaders or leadership groups who are successful in their community, but largely unknown across the U.S. You may know of programs in Tennessee that could benefit from this program. It is fairly easy to pass the work along via email. The grant deadline for this year is January 6, 2004.

http://leadershipforchange.org/program/ "

LGLP - The last Local Government Leadership Program for this year was held in Knoxville November 5 - 7. It was the fourth one this year. Thanks to everyone who made the phone calls and visits to invite city officials to all four. Particular thanks to Kurt for inviting EOA graduates to this last session. We're setting up a pipeline. Level III of the Elected Officials Academy will be the LGLP and we should always have enough people interested and willing to attend.

Effective Council Meetings - There are about 165 city officials in the state who now know more about how to conduct an effective council meeting. Margaret and David have finished teaching their City University course for November. They did a great job of preparation and presentation.

Municipal Management Academy - You've heard from the training team about this new program. We have designed it for city department heads and supervisors. Our plan is to offer it in city hall - or wherever the city usually conducts its training. Jim and Sally have worked hard to have the curriculum ready. We are now receiving letters of interest from potential contract facilitators. Jim presented it to the city managers during a recent TCMA meeting and we have some ten cities interested. We agreed to pilot the program in Gatlinburg and the first session was held last week. Jim and a special guest instructor - Rex conducted the first session for the supervisors in Gatlinburg. Because of the numbers (39 in the morning and 35 in the afternoon) Rex and Jim taught two sessions. They did a great job and got the program off to a good start.

Finally - Happy Thanksgiving!!