System Helps in Economic Downturn

The number of employees per one hundred population is an indicator that city’s use to evaluate their personnel capacity and capability. The lack of adequately trained personnel to take on the financial and personnel responsibilities of delivering the goods and services is a common cause of concern. Therefore, to ensure that taxes are affordable and quality public services are available to all citizens, the council determined critical volume of the supply of goods and services needs to be matched with the personnel capacity and capability.
The personnel capacity and capability of the city workforce has changed substantially over the last decade. There have been reductions in the Street department and increases in administrative, facility maintenance and police personnel. The overall number of employees has remained constant throughout the last decade with other service delivery methods used to pickup additional responsibilities of delivering the goods and services. Lake Mills is slightly below average for the number of employees per capita and has declined annually since 2000 when the Federal government stopped the police grants.
Increasing employees per capita may indicate that expenditures are rising faster than revenues (as personnel costs are often a major portion of government expenditures), the government is becoming more labor intensive, and/or personnel productivity is declining. Decreasing employees per capita may indicate personnel productivity increases through education, equipment or technology. This may also be an indication of a decreasing level of service.

Chart Shows Number of Employees per Hundred of City Population

The City has used a mix of FTE, PTE, TEMPS and Contractors to control costs. The City maintains a blend of FTE, PTE, TEMPS to cushion against “agent” opportunistic behavior because there has been a limited pool of competent contractor competition locally. The city also uses the mix to protect against economic shock. The city can reduce the number of PTE, TEMPS and contractors with little financial implications. The city can also seek better contract prices during economic downturns. The current goal of administration has been to blend our employee’s strengths with the most cost effective contracts. The mix allows the constant delivery of service by FTEs; the ability to adjust to seasonal changes with PTE and TEMPs; and special skills, knowledge and equipment of contractors. The contracting with external suppliers to provide public services while maintaining a minimum level of FT employees as a cushion has allowed the city to adjust to changing economic conditions while maintaining a relatively consistent level of service to date.
The city contracts with hundreds of different organizations through out the course of a year. The contracts include grass mowing, HVAC maintenance, computer administration, interpretation services, burial services, sidewalk construction and repair, street construction and repair, vehicle repair, laboratory services, jail, legal services, planning, zoning, building inspection, engineering, uniforms, cellular phone service, pagers, building maintenance, porta-potties, sanitation and recycling services, electric construction, water construction and repair, sanitary sewer construction and repair, financial services, economic development services, drug and alcohol testing, DUI testing, radio repair, etc, etc, etc. This is not even a complete listing of city contractors.
The city has used this system to provide consistent services and control the ability to reduce costs in a relatively simple fashion.

Me -Blog?

I’ve never thought of myself as a writer. Blogging usually involves some writing skills. Because I lack writing skills - what kind of benefit will I provide as a blogger? Can I use this communication option to enlighten someone enough to really make a difference? Although all of us have been communicating with others from the time we can remember, the process of communicating information from one individual to another is a very complex procedure with many potential sources of miscommunication. Many of us have ignore our inability to effectively communicate with others most of our lives. I have come to realize that communication has the potential to be very subjective because it has a strong base in our personal experiences and the accounts and explanations made to us by others. The meaning and understanding of most communication is dependent on the particular contexts in which it occurs; consequently most of the thoughts and ideas I’m trying to communicate aren’t effective far beyond the context in which they were produced. An example of this is a upcoming conference program for city managers titled “Elected Officials and Appointed Officials use the same words and speak a different language”. So, why blog?
If I want people to act based on my communications, they have to be motivated to do so. To get them to act in the way I want them too, it very much depends on the information they need to take the right course of action and to be motivated to do it. Motivation or the absence of it can quite often be traced back to communications and their influence on those receiving it.
When I’m trying to effectively communicate, the one thing I should ask myself is 'Can this message or instruction be easily understood by the audience receiving it?' Can I be sure that those receiving my message actually understand what I’m saying?
One of the most important limitations on people's perceptions is the cultural and emotional differences they use to filter the perception. Culture and emotion act as interpretative "lenses" that helps us make sense of events. Most of us, generally speaking, use the lenses to perceive what we expect to perceive. In other words, we see what we expect to see and to a very large extent hear what we want to hear. Usually the unexpected communication is not resented; what often happens is that the message has not actually been received at all. It has been neither seen nor heard. It has been ignored. Your wife or husband probably understands this issue.
More often than not - and most of us are quite unaware of the process - our mind tries very hard to fit impressions and stimuli into a framework of expectations. We resist any attempts to make us 'change our mind'.
Every day people make countless choices without much thought. They tend to apply rules and copy solutions from their cultural and emotional understanding of their environment rather than solve every problem they encounter on a daily basis. They would have difficulty surviving if they had to apply problem solving techniques to every decision they faced. Malcolm Gladwell[1] refers to this decision making process as “Blink”. Gladwell’s main points: "Blink" happens very rapidly within "the locked room" of our unconscious; we need to take this ability seriously as it leads to important insights; it can also betray us because quick judgment is highly influenced by the environment and predispositions. Our use of communication needs to manage the way people "Blink" by paying attention and making corrections to the way and types of communications used.
So, add a blog to the mix.
[1] Gladwell, Malcolm. Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. : Little, Brown and Company, January 11, 2005.

TYRANENA PARK ROAD SUBSTATION

The City has received and reviewed a Common Facilities Agreement from ATC regarding the Tyranena Park Road Substation. The agreement identifies the allocation of the cost responsibility for expansions and improvements to Common Facilities at Joint Use Substations.
A Joint Use Substation is a substation at which Assignable Facilities are installed, owned and operated by more than one entity.
Common Facilities are facilities installed at a Joint Use Substation, which are substantially used and useful to more than one entity at such substation and may include, but are not limited to, batteries, ground grids, fences, gravel areas, parking areas, landscaping, access roads, yard lighting, shielding, screening and other similar elements. Common Facilities do not include real property or the Substation property.
The Public Works Board will review the document and make a recommendation to the City Council on approving the agreement. The City Council will determine if the City Manager will be authorized to sign the agreement.

How Ace Became Ace

The City of Lake Mills was criticized recently because of a site plan that was approved that enabled the construction of a building that may become a hardware store at the entrance to the City. This criticism seems to be focused on why the City would do this to the detriment of existing businesses already located in the downtown. In response to such critics, I hope to assure readers that the City had no choice but to apply its codes to the site in question. If the requirements are met, administrators have to grant the approval.
The decision to approve the site plan is like many of the other land use decisions the City makes, such as whether to grant approval to a homeowner seeking a permit for a new addition or deck, or to a store owner who is applying for a permit to erect a new sign. Like nearly all cities in the United States, Lake Mills regulates land use through its police powers to promote and protect the public’s health, safety, comfort, convenience and general welfare. The City is granted zoning powers by the State.
Zoning was upheld as constitutional and within the government’s police powers with the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1926 decision in Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co. Since then, the limits of zoning have been further refined through federal and state case law. Zoning becomes a balancing act of the right of the individual to use their property as they wish and the interest the community has in the use of private property. When cities control land use, it does it primarily through its zoning codes, which restrict the use of private property for the benefit of the community as a whole.
The purpose of the City’s zoning ordinance is to lessen congestion in the streets, provide for fire safety, and to provide adequate standards of light, air, and open space, while also preventing the overcrowding of land by creating a rational land use pattern between residential, business, commercial, and manufacturing uses for the mutual benefit of all. Dimensional standards apply to any structures built on lots within each zoning district, and typically take the form of setbacks, height limits, minimum lot sizes, lot coverage limits, and other limitations on the "building envelope".
The use of zoning regulations means that if you want to locate a use within the city, you need to check the zoning map and code. Constructing a building on a site where the use is permitted means you only have to worry about "building envelope" issues. In the case of the new building, the site selected by the owner was zoned several years ago to allow for many kinds of businesses in the planned business district.
On the site of the new store, many other different uses could have occurred there as a matter of right. If a proposed use fits the rules for a particular zoning district, the only way the City can control the use is by applying its design standards, building codes, and set back requirements.
In approving the site plan for the new building, the approval is withheld until the parking, landscaping, and setbacks meet code requirements; and that the design of the exterior of the building is of appropriate materials and character. The same sorts of considerations were made several years ago when the construction of the convenience store at the gas station near the hardware store’s location and the construction of the drugstore next to the building in question were approved.
But, the law does not allow prohibiting the builder from receiving approvals and permits because there is already an existing hardware store downtown. That would be a clear abuse of zoning powers. To make such a demand with respect to granting the hardware store permits would be no different than telling someone who is complying with all of the pre-established zoning requirements that we already have enough three-bedroom homes in your neighborhood, so change your plans for your property and build a larger or smaller house, and then the city will grant a permit to you.
No city in the nation would be permitted to make such demands. If a property has been zoned for a particular use, anyone who wishes to buy such a property has a right to operate any of the permitted uses and construct whatever the owner wants to construct, provided all of the regulations are met. It may be that the critics of this approval and this project are confusing our present situation with the examples they may have recently observed in neighboring communities regarding the location of a large retail store that critics vowed to prevent by fighting the location of this business due to concerns over the future viability of existing, smaller retailers after the giant mega-store is permitted to build in the community.
Please be assured that although our situation may look to casual observers to be the same as what has occurred in neighboring communities, the situation with respect to the mega store is different. It is not different because the types of businesses are different. It is different because the site where the hardware store is being built was already zoned for this and many other kinds of uses at this location. The owner of the property was not seeking permission to annex or the granting of a type of zoning that would permit the construction of the hardware store. Instead, the owner of the property bought a property that was already zoned for uses that were compatible with what the owner wished to construct. So the only approval opportunities left for the City in our situation were ones that would make sure that all of the previously established regulations were being followed.
In the district where the building is being constructed that may have a hardware store, many uses were possible, it was not within the rights of the zoning administrator to dictate which of the previously permitted uses could be allowed and which would not be allowed, because the ordinance in place allows the use in the zoning district. Some of the other possible, permitted uses at the location were: general merchandise stores, food stores, garden stores, apparel stores, furniture and home furnishing stores, travel agencies, and office supply stores.
Besides these types of stores, the owner of properties within the zoning district could also allow real estate, financial, insurance or legal services to be provided, or where medical facilities, barber shops and similar uses could be operated. This particular location also could provide for such institutional uses such as churches, or civic, social and fraternal associations. Even service stations, drive-in or drive-thru restaurants, car wash facilities, auto banks, and similar uses could also be constructed. Most of these uses would be in competition with businesses already in Lake Mills. In each of these other possible uses for the property in question, the City would be restricted from demanding that some uses could be used and others could not.
Zoning is simply a limited system for dividing a city into several districts so that land use conflicts will be minimized. One would not put a house in the middle of an industrial park, and a factory cannot be located next to a drug store. Zoning ordinances regulate uses of land in detail so every owner of land and every potential buyer of a property will know what is permitted and required on the particular property, and also on the properties nearby. Despite the critics, zoning really is good for protecting what’s already there and for preventing nuisances, but once someone is seeking to operate within the established rules, no one can say to a prospective business owner that we already have a business like yours, so either pick a different business or go to some other community to build what you have in mind.
While zoning certainly can be criticized, the careful and evenhanded administration of a thoughtfully drafted zoning ordinance remains one of the best ways to implement the community comprehensive plan. Zoning makes an important contribution to the livability, efficiency, and attractiveness of the City. The City of Lake Mills has developed a vision for the whole community and sometimes specific objectives of the vision may seem mutually exclusive, but the City’s zoning is a legally defendable plan that ties diverse aspects of a community together.
Instead of blaming the zoning or those who administer it, maybe it would be more useful to consider that it may actually be the case that people and their purchasing habits are driving the resulting business economic options more than zoning regulations or those required to administer them.

Political Windmills

Why do some elected officials avoid reality altogether and act like "Facts are the enemy of truth." These were words spoken by Don Quixote in Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra’s book “Don Quixote.”[1] What does it mean to fight windmills in public administration? It means fighting nothing important or real, just imaginary enemies and issues. The windmill may be the “phantom illegal employee action,” “phantom annexation” or the “phantom memo.” All meaningless matters, which one builds into something solid and formidable in one’s mind and because it’s a public issue gains gravity.[2] Everybody wants to be somebody even if it's only Don Quixote fighting windmills. Dealing with windmill issues is irritating, divisive and devoid of fact. You can't defend something that is not there to surrender. Some people just cannot come to the realization that these windmills are imaginary, that one can remove them by not endowing them with strength and importance. A slightly different version of this is shown by the following story: The conductor calls for everyone to board the train from New York to Chicago. Many people from the station board the train. About the time the train is pulling out of the train station, one woman says she’s on the train to Paris. The conductor corrects her by stating again that it’s the train to Chicago. The woman leans over and tells the passenger next to her that she’s on the train to Paris. The fellow passenger asks the conductor if the train is going to Paris and the conductor says “no’ that it’s going to Chicago and the passenger says that the woman who told him seemed very sincere about the train going to Paris. Pretty soon someone else asks the conductor why the train is going to Paris because they need to go to Chicago and again the conductor states it’s the train to Chicago. Eventually there is a panic about the train going to Paris rather than Chicago. The train ends up in Chicago. Our political landscapes are full of windmills.
[1] Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de. “Don Quixote,” Part I published in 1605; Part II in 1615.
[2] Appleby, Paul. “Government is Different” 1945 - reprinted in Classics of Public Administration, sixth edition. Edited by Jay M. Shafritz and Albert C. Hyde, page 119-123

Summer Projects

TOPEKA DRIVE REBUILD:

THE FOLLOWING WORK HAS BEEN COMPLETED.

STORM SEWER
· LMS will finish Stony/Topeka intersection Tuesday (6/2)
· LMS will start at north outfall to Rock Creek (@ Gladstone) Tuesday (6/2)
· Inverts are being poured 1 to 2 days after structures are installed.
· Sump lateral connections will be done following storm sewer main installation.

WATER MAIN
· All testing completed.
· Safe samples have been received.
· All services have been installed.
· LMS will be removing existing hydrants during storm sewer installation.

SANITARY SEWER
· All pipe installed.
· Service installed.
· Pressure testing was waived due to live lateral hook-up.

WORK IN PROGRESS.

WE ENERGIES
· Have adjusted gas main at CTH V, Cass, and Plainview for storm sewer.
· Still need to adjust gas main at Gladstone for storm sewer. This is planned to be completed this week.

WATER AND LIGHT
· Waiting for LMS to complete storm sewer installation to begin work.

B.R. AMON
· Scheduled to come on site following storm sewer completion to start building subgrade for street.



BREWSTER STREET SUBDIVISION:

The surface asphalt was paved May 29.

A site walk-through has been scheduled for the Brewster Drive subdivision work.

This walk-through will identify any major work items remaining as well as a punch list.

This walk-through was asked for by owner’s engineer in preparation for a letter of credit reduction submittal.
The owner has requested to final the subdivion.

Items that will be looking at include: retaining wall railing, grass restoration, chimney seals, sidewalk concrete, curb concrete, hydrant orientation, curb box adjustments, storm sewer piping, detention basin grading, and anything else related to the public improvements.



TYRANENA PARK ROAD SUBSTATION:

All of the structure foundations, including the transformer pads and control house pads have been poured, and some of the underground conduit has been installed. The ground grid is being laid out and should be completed in the next couple of weeks. The transformers are scheduled to be shipped late next week of the week after.



FRANKLIN STREET RESERVOIR:

L.C. Painting Company was awarded the contract to repaint the reservoir. The work will be completed this summer.



CP/PRAIRIE SANITARY SEWER PROJECT:

This is a potential schedule for the project:

May 1 = Survey Complete
June 1 = Preliminary Design sent to City for Review
June 1 = Submit Chapter 30 Permit to DNR
July 1 = Submit DNR Sanitary Sewer Permit
July 16 = First Advertisement
July 23 = Second Advertisement
July 30 = Open Bids
August 3 = Award Contract
August 17 = Start Construction
October 16 = Completion Date



WATER SYSTEM CONTROL AND DATA AQUISITION PROJECT:
The objectives of this project are as follows:
Replace the existing outdated control system with a new SCADA system which provides state-of-the-art centralized monitoring and control of the water system facilities.
Replace the existing leased-line modem network with an FCC-licensed radio network.
Provide an alarm notification system that will notify staff of specific alarms and key system data via standard telephone line.
Provide a reporting system that will collect and store pump, flow, and water quality data.
Provide the foundation of SCADA-integrated site security and access logging system.
Provide an inline chlorine analyzer for installation at the public works building. Integrate analyzer into SCADA reporting system. Include option for single fluoride analyzer.

Our Task?

As City Managers, we understand that any policy-making process involves value conflicts, social constructs, and stakeholders. In our divided societies, where social homogeneity is limited and power is unequally distributed, people have conflicting interests and desired results, and thus will tend to have different particular opinions. Policy-making has to be shaped by the recognition of competing values, ideas and judgments as well as understanding our own bounded rational tools. We try to systematize our decisions and then explain particular judgments about what is “just” by appealing to widely shared principles, we "go back and forth," and finally change the judgments or the principles to satisfy similarly revisable methodological constraints, such as consistency, simplicity, and explanatory power. The real task is to find a stable basis for cooperation that does not abstract from actual interests but that also avoids relativization to those interests.
Policy-makers, management and the policy analyst face uncertainty about the future and the costs of acquiring information in the present. These factors limit the extent to which decision makers can make a fully rational decision. Yet, our rational and political processes are the utmost decision makers can utilize in the bounded and uncertain real world. As managers, as policy-makers, none can predict the end results of our decisions. Nor can anyone identify or recognize all available options in context, even if there were the time and financial resources to pursue them. What policy-makers do have is the insight gained from our experience to accurately identify the values that will come into conflict, deal honestly with social constructs (those of others and of our own making) and to bring in appropriate stakeholders, all the while reserving the right to exercise professional judgment, and be willing to change and adjust in the future.
Policy-makers and policy analysts are going to be required to go beyond the boundary of our current knowledge and understanding to sustain a distribution of burden and benefit across residents in a manner that is consistent with the accepted norms of fairness and equity. Only there will we find many of the answers to the core problems of our communities and organizations.