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.