ThisWeek UA 6/2/2010
One of my favorite TV shows these days is “Parks and Recreation”. It’s about the city parks and recreation department of Pawnee Indiana. A recent episode was centered around the theme that the city of Pawnee is bankrupt and had to shut down; that cuts of 30% need to be made; and, that character Leslie Knope is a government worker bound and determined to provide services to people no matter what obstacles (such as bankruptcy) are thrown at her. In the face of a cost cutting commission bent on ridding the city of everything but the most basic of services the tenacious Leslie Knope manages to scrape together enough volunteer help from the laid off city staff to put on one final event that the department had scheduled for the children of Pawnee.
While this is a fictional comedy the underpinnings of the story are not so far from reality – economic problems plague many communities. Our own city council has appointed a cost cutting subcommittee even though our community has not been so unfortunate; our city staff has been very attentive to our financial stability and has managed to not only maintain our high bond ratings but even in this down economy, following on the heals of the loss of AOL, they continue to find ways to make significant investments in our community.
At a recent city council work session Finance Director Armstrong reported that tax revenues were rising. As a local economic indicator this means our community, its citizens and businesses are on a whole overcoming the economic downturn.
I consider this economic stability a success for our community. For the city’s part the staff has set goals of maintaining high bond ratings, sticking within budgets approved by city council and balancing the maintenance needs and the need for new investment to remain competitive within that budget. But these can’t be the only goals that measure the success of our community.
When I chose to live in UA I believed I was moving into a community that is dedicated to focusing on the overall quality of life of its residents, to being a premier community; not a community solely focused on the bottom line of a tax bill. If this is to remain true there needs to be a broad set of goals based on a clear vision of our community’s future.
How then do we set those goals so that we can unequivocally claim success? Isn’t “quality of life” in the eye of the beholder? How can you substantiate such a nebulous statement?
As a community we must determine what we want UA to be, defining what “quality of life” means. We have to allow ourselves to dream about our future and then set the goals that are required to get us there. If we dream of a community that continues to offer a premier standard of living through superior services and opportunities then our goals will be much different than if we dream of becoming a community that operates on the lowest tax base – it is all of our responsibility to define quality of life together.
This visioning is a key ingredient to a successful master plan and it is just as important for subjects like economic development as it is to recreational infrastructure. By creating the larger vision as a community it allows those specific measurable goals to be developed to get us there. The nature of this type of visioning works because it invests the very stakeholders concerned in the process; it isn’t about by-in, it is about co-creation.
So when I hear questions about how our city staff has handled the budgets, time off or investments in new infrastructure as opposed to just performing maintenance I reflect on my choice to move here. To move into a community that I believe sold itself as a place that values upholding a high quality of life, of being more than just a place to live. I consider the value I derive from the current opportunities being created by the city and its staff and for me I feel things have balanced out well.
Arriving at that feeling comes in part because I consider the economic indicators above, the public meetings I’ve been able to participate in and events like Spring Fling (recently held at the new Sunny 95 park). These after business hour events are chock full of city staff – some required and some volunteering – all of which are necessary to making our city a success. Unlike in private industry where working those extra hours will get you a boost in your annual bonus, increased salary and other perks there are no bonus checks in public service and no freebies from vendors, just the agreed to earnings you are contracted to receive. When our city staff goes that extra mile it is something they do because of their passion.
At the end of that Parks and Recreation episode a character that took the buyout option from the city explained that if Pawnee government were full of passionate public servants like Leslie Knope then he would still be a public servant. In Upper Arlington I think we are blessed with just that situation – a city staff full of Leslie Knopes, of dedicated and passionate professionals.
As council considers cost savings and the shaping of the goals of the master plan I hope they keep this often overlooked value in mind.