Ladies and Gentlemen, lend me your ears....

The Marana Forum has been my life for the past few weeks. As my previous post stated, I was part of a team that gave a presentation to council! I think it went well, I felt like I was stuttering and said the same words over and over again, but it turned out to be really great. The council was really receptive to the idea and wanted to see a revamping of the strategic goal to have more productive and regular community engagement. I have been working on setting up the staff Forum, which is being held today!

We are holding a focus group today, for a random sampling of employees, to discuss some internal town issues. We are using this as an outlet for a "test run" of the Forum process. They had a discussion this morning about the issue and requested some of the data the Town could provide, and at the end of the day will provide tangible action plans for presentation to the Town Manager and the Human Resources Department Head, since the issue relates to her department. There was a bit of a push back this morning, beginning the conversation, but once they warmed up and had an icebreaker! the participating employees were really vocal and had some great ideas. I am really looking forward to what the outcomes are and what the ideas they come up with for the HR department.

I have been pretty swamped with this Forum stuff the past few weeks, but I am also working hard on getting all the wastewater documents in one place in a logical manner. There is always something regarding wastewater each day that I come to work, but the pile of paper is getting smaller and smaller each day. Eventually, I will get through the entire stack.

I have had my first experience with a close deadline for a project. The Town has been doing some really great clean up on I-10! So much so, that the Continential Ranch HOA wants to do a story about the clean up for their neighborhood newsletter! I have been chatting with Julie Bailey and Orville Saling about the project and the general beautification of the Town along I-10. It is really important to management that when someone drives through the Town they have a good feeling and see how great it is here. We just built that beautiful Twin Peaks interchange, and the stretch of I-10 just north of it was fairly overgrown and messy. The Town took it upon itself to clean that area up and make sure it was up to the wonderful standards the Town holds. I need to get that done tomorrow and since Julie was a part of the Forum today I was able to pick her brain about the process, which will help me with the short story.

I have been really enjoying my time with the town. I am able to be a part of bigger events than I had ever thought was possible at the intern level. I gave a presentation to council for goodness sakes! This Forum today was also big opportunity for me as well. Since no one over a supervisor was able to attend I was the only person who could participate. I was here in an administrative capacity. I set up the room, Diane helped me order the food, Ann and Laine helped to facilitate the entire thing. We got some really great feedback that is going to be contribute to helping the Town communicate information to the staff, and keep everyone on the same track moving forward. It might have been rough getting there, but the outcomes were exceptional. I hope we can do it again in the future.

Mr. Mayor members of Council

Tonight I am part of a group that is presenting a new model for citizen engagement to the Town Council. I am both really excited and nervous at the same time. I am confident that I know the information that I will be talking about, which is good. I was able to go into the council chambers and practice yesterday, making sure that my presentation loaded correctly and that the animations were right. It was nice since it made it a LITTLE less intimidating. When you are sitting in the audience the council looks very high up and scary, but when you are standing at the podium where the computer is, its not as scary. They are closer and not as high up as it looks when sitting in the audience. I am thankful for Jocelyn Bronson for helping me prepare both the PowerPoint and the set up. She and the Town Manager, Gilbert Davidson, are part of the presentation as well, which is again comforting, knowing that they will be able to jump in should I get stuck on a question or am confusing.

I will have to remember the etiquette when addressing them....Mr. Mayor, Council Member X...answer to the question. We are just asking them to direct Town staff to continue with research and planning for this new model, so its not like there will be changes to the Town Code or new Ordinances or anything....so as far as impact to the community as a whole, its fairly small. That does not mean that I am not taking this seriously in anyway. I have been preparing for weeks, and am glad that we are able to get a decision on whether Council likes this and wants to continue with it. I hope so, I think it will be a really cool new way to get citizens involved on issues that are highly important to the community.

I will let you know how it goes tomorrow.

Keeping up with the Correspondence

I have been so busy that I have slacked in my Blogging duties. I do really enjoying keeping a log of what has been happening and the new ideas and projects I get assigned, but they do keep me from my blogging.

I am still plugging away at the wastewater document management/administration. I am able to reconcile the hard copies with the electronic versions now, and make sure everything is in one place and easily accessible. I have also been working on the contracts process for the Town and most of the skills I used for wastewater can, hopefully, be used in this arena also.

The past few weeks have been a real learning experience for me. I have been privy to details of how this municipality runs and what drives the decisions management and staff make. As a new professional, it has really been eye-opening to see these types of decisions and processes. It has also given me the chance to think things through and see everything that goes into a functioning municipality. I really give credit to the department heads and management, they maintain the mission and vision and strategic goals of the Town regardless of the area. I really think that is one of the reasons that Marana has been able to withstand the economic hardships that have plagued other cities and towns.

Vickie and I held court at the League of Cities and Town convention last week. We had an exceptional booth with give aways galore and a working traffic light! Special thanks to the guys from O&M for helping us with all the traffic themed items we used. It made it so authentic. That experience was another of which, I was really glad to be a part. I got to facilitate from design to implementation. Even thought it was just a small booth, it seemed a little like a microcosm of what I have been doing on other projects. While not doing the work solo, I have been given the autonomy to work things out on my own and bring ideas back to the table for discussion. Sometimes they are shot down, of course, but the opportunity to have that discussion is invaluable to me, just starting my career. I really enjoy being here, not sure I mentioned that before, but its true. There are really smart, energetic and motivated people here, and I would love to continue to be a part of what makes Marana successful.

Goings on

The past few days I have been busy with a ton of different things. The biggest news is that one of my projects is moving forward in the process for final implementation.

I have been working with the Town Clerk on several projects the past few weeks. One of them has been regarding the current Boards and Commissions. I have been part of an internal team working on some of the details for this new project. I put together a background report, executive summary and a presentation. I had to give the presentation to all the department heads on Monday morning. I was pretty nervous since I wanted to make sure that I explained the project clearly and did not come off as a know-nothing. I think it went pretty well. No one said that I did terrible, but who would say that...

Giving the presentation was really helpful in several ways. First, it gave me more practice speaking in front of people that I am not 100% familiar with. We gave presentations during my MPA, but those were to my friends and teachers and usually did not have any consequences rather than grades, but this presentation had real life outcomes, if the Town chooses to implement this new design. It also was meant to provide the department heads the opportunity to give feedback on the process in order to work out all the details and make sure that this program can be the best it can be. I really appreciated their feedback and I they brought up many different things of which the internal team had not yet thought. I am going to give the same presentation to another group and then to the Council eventually, so I was glad to have the practice.

I am currently working on two programs that are going to be reinstated during this fiscal year. They are very similar in that one is for citizens and the other for employees. I am currently only working on citizen program since we have not yet met regarding the employee program, but I think that they will coincide fairly seamlessly. I have been preparing schedules and background for the citizens program, and I think we can pull quite a bit from this for the employee version, so I am looking forward to getting that started next week.

I have also been working on setting up the Town's United Way campaign. I think it will be a great marketing campaign and hopefully we will have a number of employees who will be interested in giving to help others. There are several agencies that work with the United Way that provide service to Marana residents. We are looking to start our campaign in the next few months, so I will be very busy with that in the next couple weeks. They are really great to work with so I am excited to be involved with the United Way.

I have also been working on finishing up organizing all the wastewater documents. I am almost finished with the electronic documents, and then it comes to make sure that all the hard copies are in there and scanning things that are not missing from the repository. This process should not take as long since I did a lot of the work ahead of time naming things and putting them in specific folders that searching should be a piece of cake. Well that is the hope anyway. I will start working on something similar for the contracts process. Currently, the team is working on how to move forward with a successful and transparent contract management process, which will be applied to most every department. But my responsibility is to create a naming convention to be used for these contracts. I created one for the wastewater files, but these are different types of documents, and my WW convention does not apply. So I have been going through different types of files to see what is currently in the system and how they are currently named as a starting place and then when the team meets again we can come up with a final decision.

I am really enjoying my time with the Town. I feel as if I am working on projects that are meaningful and will make a difference in the management of Town business and will make things more streamlined and easier for staff. As far as the new programs are concerned, that is one of the most exciting things for me. I love coming up with new and fresh ideas to brighten up something that might not have been active in recent years. I have been doing that with my volunteer experience for years, and it is nice to use those skills in my chosen profession. I really like being in on something from the beginning and working hard to build it and see it through to fruition. There is a great sense of pride that comes with seeing something you have worked so hard on finally be achieved. I really want to be able to work on something that the Town and Marana residents will  be proud of. That they can say, "oh yeah, that really awesome program..... its in my town." Its just life affirming being excited about everything (mostly) in your chosen field. I am just having a great time! Yes, I know....giant dork.

New Project Alert!

So I might be the worst at blogging....but more likely there has just been so much going on recently that I just have not had the time to sit down and think/reflect.

I have still been working on the wastewater documents. Slowly but surely I will get through that backlog! Its amazing the records that have been kept over the past 6 years!

The HR survey I have been developing finally went out for respondents this week, which is both exciting and scary. I just hope people respond and that it is easy to use and understand. I think it will be quick and we will get some great data back.

The new stuff has been really exciting also! Last week Vickie and I attended the Arizona City/County Managers Association conference in Tucson. It is the state branch of the International City/County Manager's Association, and is a place where managers and other leaders from towns, cities and counties all over the state come for professional development. It was a three and half day conference and each day was broken up into continuing education type sessions. I really enjoyed the citizen's engagement talk and got a lot of great ideas for the new commissions system we are working on, as well as the sustainability and green government discussion. Recycling and others types of conservation is something that I am really into, not in a crazy hippie way, but a normal and reasonable way. I do not drive to work on french fry oil or anything, but I am a bit of a recycling dictator...So it was really interesting to see how, in this instance, Maricopa County was institutionalizing sustainable programs.
There were so many other lectures; pensions and retirement, ask the experts, economic update, legislative update, mobile governing, and many others. It was really cool to learn from others in the profession.

Did I mention that I have some new projects....
Well I am going to start working on something that the Town has done in the past, but due to budget restrictions had to discontinue, but they are bringing it back! I had this idea from the conference about how to generate employee buy in to reduce attrition and turn over, and that fits perfectly into the project with HR and the Clerk's office. They have a employee training program where new employees are introduced to Marana and what the Town has to offer. It is a great way to inform while promoting the Town. There is an external program also, that citizens can participate in to learn more about Marana and municipal government in general. This is so exciting, since I am the biggest government nerd out there, talking and teaching other people about it will be amazing!
The other project is similar to the wastewater project in that it centers around organization, but this time it involves the contracting process. So I will be using the same programs, but in a new way. I am learning more about the other departments; how they function and what types of work they do. It makes my rotation through CIP and Records that much more important since now I have a beginning knowledge of what they do, and I do not have to start from scratch. Contracts are unique because most of the work is done electronically, editing and revising drafts, but the most important part are the signatures and how do we remedy the signatures with the electronic versions. That is what I am going to be working on with folks from Finance, CIP, Tech Services, and Records.

I have really been having a great time here. The days just seem to fly by, and it never seems like I have enough time to get things done. I think that is real life though. I am glad to be here and feel like I am doing work that is meaningful for Marana residents. While it might not seem that way when I am sitting and sorting through documents, the end product will be significant.

Internship Update!

There has been a lot happening here over the past few days!

Vickie and I are in charge of the Marana table at the League of Cities and Towns showcase of Towns convention. Each participating jurisdiction has a booth where they present all thats awesome about their city/town. Vickie and I have been working diligently on ours. We have a theme, and have talked with some of the other departments about how to implement that design with actual materials and devices the Town uses. I think that the more authentic the booth, the more attractive and interesting it will be. I really want it to be the most popular at the convention! I think we are on our way to having a successful event.

I have also been working on getting through all of the wastewater files and documents. I was lucky enough to have two staff members help me drag and drop. Thank goodness for them! They are saving me so much time and are allowing me to focus on the other documents that do NOT even have names or assignments yet. We should have a big document party once they are all renamed and assigned to the proper folder! I know it sounds totally boring, but for a giant nerd like me...its the best thing ever!

The commissions project has been coming along nicely and I have a meeting with the Town Manager at the end of the week to go over what has been done so far. I hope that he likes it and can give us some great feedback before we take the idea to the department heads. Another thing I am nervous about!

The survey I have been creating with HR seems to be working out great. We sent it out to a test group and got some great feedback. I have been reorganizing questions and types of responses to make it that much better. I think that by the end of the summer, the survey will be implemented.

I am so excited that some of things I have been working on are coming to fruition! I have been working hard and am glad to see that my work is paying off. I don't think that would have been the case this quickly if I had worked for a large municipality. I am glad to be here, and working on these projects just reinforces that notion each day!

QT and Trico Adventures

Today was busy! I started the morning at the Grand Opening of the new Quick Trip gas station that opened on the east side of I-10 at Cortaro. There is a few QTs by my house and they are awesome, so I was really looking forward to this event. It started right at 8am and the Chamber of Commerce had a ribbon cutting ceremony just like with the Legacy Apartments. It was really neat to see all the people who had worked on the project there to see the final result. The planning department, the Town Manager and Deputy Town Manager as well as many of the council members were there to help congratulate the people at QT for a job well done. It will be a terrific sales tax and HURF revenue generator for the Town and the State, which is great with the current economic climate. I was really impressed with how many people were there, not just for the ribbon cutting but were already there buying gas and other gas station goodies. It looks like they are going to do really well.

The other event we had this morning was the dedication of the new Trico Electric Co-Op's solar field. It is right next to the Trico building on Tangerine. This is an amazing new feature for Trico members.
NERD ALERT!
This new solar field allows members to purchase a portion of a solar panel and use the energy it generates for as a credit on their electric bill. They can buy a quarter or up to the entire panel! It allows the members to reduce reliance on "non-green" methods of energy in a cost effective manner. Here are some FAQs if you are a Trico member and want to learn more about the program. Sadly, I am not a Trico member...

The rest of the day was taken up with meetings, finishing up projects and learning about new projects. My Manrana Legends list is almost complete, I am tracking down a few more phone numbers and addresses for the lady writing a book on local legends including Marana, Oro Valley and Catalina. Should be fascinating with all the history in the area. I also met with some of the staff to begin work on finding a way to work with the United Way. It had tried to be done in the past and had some challenges, but now we are hoping to get the program reinstated and starting giving back to the community in other ways.

As the summer has gone along I have really been given the opportunity to be involved with many facets of the town. I have been able to work with HR, Strategic Initiatives, the Manager's Office, and Utilities and many other areas. It just reinforces one of the major pluses about working in a municipality like Marana; each department works directly with others on a pretty daily basis. I enjoy learning about the interconnected manner of the different agencies and be able to use other people's and department's talents toward a project. This does not seem like the norm, just another way that Marana is innovative and ahead of the game!