I have noticed that there are workers here who are exceptional when dealing with the general public. They are outgoing and friendly. I enjoy talking with people and trying to understand their perspective and see the Town from their shoes. I am going to try to spend dome time with these very talented workers during my internship.
One of the people works as the Constituent Services Coordinator. She is the person who fields all of the communications from citizens to the Town. These communications come in the form of in person, Email, and phone calls. They can cover any topic about the Town from water quality to the Police and everything in between. Often times when you see people who are customer service reps you think of the people who work at the DMV. I have always had the DMV worker who looked like they just wanted to go home. One unique thing about our staff is that they do not seem to be “Burnt out”. Each case to them is a new challenge and opportunity to have a citizen satisfied with the Town.
I offer this for discussion, are you one of those types who loves to work with the general public? Do you have that drive to be extra friendly and tolerable to people with criticism for your organization? How would you recommend that I learn the secrets of this skill from our current staff?
Monday, June 22, 2009
Monday, June 15, 2009
My First Real Project Continued
To continue the progress update with my first real project I am happy to report that I will get to present my project in front of Council in less than two weeks. I have been working on my PowerPoint and today I will do a mock presentation. I am excited to present. This will be my first time standing before a Council.
I don’t have any particular hopes or expectations for the decision about my project. This project is a topic that has been presented before and I am merely showing the research I have done thus far to see if more is warranted. I have come to truly understand that even though I may be doing the research and have this information; I am only there to present it the best I can. I have removed myself emotionally from the project. If Council chooses to move forward authorizing continued research then great, if not that’s ok too and I will get started on the next thing. The good thing about this kind of work is that there is no shortage of these kinds of projects. This is a great thing because I will not be doing the same thing everyday. Plus, after a career of doing this I will have a small “jack of all trades” kind of knowledge.
My question to you all is have you ever needed to separate yourself from a project that you have spent hours, days, weeks or longer working on? I know that working on something that you are passionate about is a great feeling, but has that feeling ever caused you trouble?
I don’t have any particular hopes or expectations for the decision about my project. This project is a topic that has been presented before and I am merely showing the research I have done thus far to see if more is warranted. I have come to truly understand that even though I may be doing the research and have this information; I am only there to present it the best I can. I have removed myself emotionally from the project. If Council chooses to move forward authorizing continued research then great, if not that’s ok too and I will get started on the next thing. The good thing about this kind of work is that there is no shortage of these kinds of projects. This is a great thing because I will not be doing the same thing everyday. Plus, after a career of doing this I will have a small “jack of all trades” kind of knowledge.
My question to you all is have you ever needed to separate yourself from a project that you have spent hours, days, weeks or longer working on? I know that working on something that you are passionate about is a great feeling, but has that feeling ever caused you trouble?
Thursday, June 11, 2009
To speak or not to speak
I have had an observation that I was wondering if you guys could relate to. It is knowing when to be quiet. By this I mean knowing when you can and cannot share information between people, both inside and outside the organization. When is it ok to share information you heard in a meeting with someone inside your organization. When is it ok for outside the organization? How do you deal with an inquisitive person at work that your supervisor told you to say nothing to?
While you may not be working for a government you might have experience with this subject. I have been finding myself trying to cope with the desire to share information to others who have interest in the subject. I recently sat in a meeting with two council members and the director of our Parks and Rec department. There was a discussion about other options to offer parks during the summer. Because of the budget cuts the Town was unable to begin construction on a new park and the entire project has been shelved. Recognizing that the Town still needs to offer additional park space for the summer, the idea of contracting with local schools to use their fields was discussed. The idea was to have the Town pay for the operation and maintenance of the fields and the school would essentially allow their fields to be used as a park for the public. It is an idea that several other municipalities have already done and we were going to start making calls to see if we could establish a similar program.
A few days later I stopped by a fund raising car wash. When I got out of my car I was greeted by the coach of a local girl’s youth soccer team raising funds to go to competitions and for new uniforms. I told the coach that I was an intern for the Town and I asked “What can the Town do to help you?” He replied that they are having trouble finding locations to play. The team had to rotate places to practice as the fields they played on required to be rested. The coach told me that he was disappointed to hear that the park idea was shelved, as that was going to be their new field to practice and play.
Naturally, I wanted to tell him “Hey we are on top of this. We know that there are not enough parks in Town. We are sorry that we had to hold off on the new park, but we are working on getting you a replacement. We are going to get all of our schools to open to the public and you can play wherever you want.” But instead I made my comments more vague. I told him that we have a couple of council members working on just that very issue. I cannot go into details but if you give me your contact information I can update you with the progress. He gave me his name and number and I gave him mine. I could tell he was a little disappointed with the fact that I could tell him specifics. I feel that it is so important to tell the people everything we are working on to show how hard we are working. I want people to know that local government is far more responsive than they think. When we respond to problems a lot of consideration goes into presentations to Council and the execution of programs. However, I held back and now I wait until the parks information becomes “declassified”.
While you may not be working for a government you might have experience with this subject. I have been finding myself trying to cope with the desire to share information to others who have interest in the subject. I recently sat in a meeting with two council members and the director of our Parks and Rec department. There was a discussion about other options to offer parks during the summer. Because of the budget cuts the Town was unable to begin construction on a new park and the entire project has been shelved. Recognizing that the Town still needs to offer additional park space for the summer, the idea of contracting with local schools to use their fields was discussed. The idea was to have the Town pay for the operation and maintenance of the fields and the school would essentially allow their fields to be used as a park for the public. It is an idea that several other municipalities have already done and we were going to start making calls to see if we could establish a similar program.
A few days later I stopped by a fund raising car wash. When I got out of my car I was greeted by the coach of a local girl’s youth soccer team raising funds to go to competitions and for new uniforms. I told the coach that I was an intern for the Town and I asked “What can the Town do to help you?” He replied that they are having trouble finding locations to play. The team had to rotate places to practice as the fields they played on required to be rested. The coach told me that he was disappointed to hear that the park idea was shelved, as that was going to be their new field to practice and play.
Naturally, I wanted to tell him “Hey we are on top of this. We know that there are not enough parks in Town. We are sorry that we had to hold off on the new park, but we are working on getting you a replacement. We are going to get all of our schools to open to the public and you can play wherever you want.” But instead I made my comments more vague. I told him that we have a couple of council members working on just that very issue. I cannot go into details but if you give me your contact information I can update you with the progress. He gave me his name and number and I gave him mine. I could tell he was a little disappointed with the fact that I could tell him specifics. I feel that it is so important to tell the people everything we are working on to show how hard we are working. I want people to know that local government is far more responsive than they think. When we respond to problems a lot of consideration goes into presentations to Council and the execution of programs. However, I held back and now I wait until the parks information becomes “declassified”.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Regional Transit Meeting
On Wednesday June 3rd I joined the Town Engineer to Tucson for the Pima Association of Governments (PAG) and Regional Transit Authority (RTA) conference. The subject of the conference was the affects of the upcoming federal stimulus and the State budget as well as updating the 5 year plan. On the car ride over the Engineer Craig, and I talked about the new trends in transit. One comment that I had brought up was that there is going to be an increase in population and cars using the roads, representing an increase in usage and demand for roads. A gas tax of $0.184 for Federal and $0.18 for state equals $0.364 total. This rate remains constant whether the price for gasoline is $1 or $4 per gallon. The point I brought up was the fact that federal mandates are requiring new vehicles to have increasing fuel economy ratings. I cannot remember the exact years or numbers, but the point was that cars will become more fuel efficient thus having the possible effect of lowering the amount of tax revenue from the sale of gasoline. This of course depends on the increase in the number of vehicles driving as well as other factors. Craig said it was a valid point of concern. He agreed with me and thought that the increase in the number of cars driving would not be enough to counteract the increasing MPG rating. He also pointed out that if alternative fuel becomes more popular that could also have an effect.
Craig is the Vice Chair for the Transportation Finance Subcommittee. There were about 20 or so people attending this meeting. Many concerns were expressed about the highway and other transportation funds for the future. If some funds did not receive a federal deposit they would be bankrupt in a year or so. When the Chair of the committee asked for any other concerns Craig brought up my point about the increasing MPG theory. The Chair immediately said that it was a great point to bring up and a 20 minute discussion on the topic ensued.
Being a new intern means that I am invited to almost every meeting that is held. Often times I have nothing to contribute except for questions clarifying things. It was a nice change to have one of my ideas discussed among engineers from across the different municipalities who have been working in the field since before I was born.
On the car ride back to town Craig and I talked about the idea of changing the source of revenue away from the gas tax. The funds from the gas tax are used to pay for road improvement, maintenance and expansion. Rather than have the revenue be based off of the gas tax, it might be more efficient to get a form of tax closer to the actual usage of the roads. Perhaps a millage tax run through the DMV would be an option. It would be difficult to determine on which roads the millage was actually used. But the specific idea is not what is important now. The main idea is to determine a way to have revenue match usage so that citizens do not overpay for roads or drive on underfunded roads.
Craig is the Vice Chair for the Transportation Finance Subcommittee. There were about 20 or so people attending this meeting. Many concerns were expressed about the highway and other transportation funds for the future. If some funds did not receive a federal deposit they would be bankrupt in a year or so. When the Chair of the committee asked for any other concerns Craig brought up my point about the increasing MPG theory. The Chair immediately said that it was a great point to bring up and a 20 minute discussion on the topic ensued.
Being a new intern means that I am invited to almost every meeting that is held. Often times I have nothing to contribute except for questions clarifying things. It was a nice change to have one of my ideas discussed among engineers from across the different municipalities who have been working in the field since before I was born.
On the car ride back to town Craig and I talked about the idea of changing the source of revenue away from the gas tax. The funds from the gas tax are used to pay for road improvement, maintenance and expansion. Rather than have the revenue be based off of the gas tax, it might be more efficient to get a form of tax closer to the actual usage of the roads. Perhaps a millage tax run through the DMV would be an option. It would be difficult to determine on which roads the millage was actually used. But the specific idea is not what is important now. The main idea is to determine a way to have revenue match usage so that citizens do not overpay for roads or drive on underfunded roads.
My first real project
I encountered my first real challenge about a week into my internship. The challenge was my writing style. After years of working for police departments and writing incident reports my style of “Just the facts ma’m” writing is not the best style used for writing a council communication. I normally write the facts in sequential order with no story or filler. I reported the facts and only facts. For my first large project however, I needed to change that. My first draft went to the Management Analyst who is my mentor, to whom I report to daily. She said it was a fine first attempt and that all of the information needed was there, but it needed to flow better. She explained that although council has been presented this project before I needed more background information and why staff is looking at the situation again.
Because Council members are very busy information is better conveyed when it flows like a good story. This is a difficult balance between presenting options for them to consider while maintaining a flowing structure. I had to try to step back from the information (which I had spent a week gathering and knew by heart), and think to myself “If I was being presented with this for the first time how would I think about it? In what order would questions come?” I tried to think of what kinds of questions might come to mind first, and then I tried to answer those questions in the writing as quickly as possible.
After several revisions and much help from my mentor and another intern who has been here for about a year and a half, I had an acceptable draft to present the Town Manager. To be honest I was nervous sitting across from him. I have never had my writing analyzed by a manager professionally. I have had my writing graded academically by teachers who had been city managers previously, but this is my first time working for a city/town and thus this was my first formal review of my work. He sat across from me and my mentor next to me. He had a silver metal pen to scan the pages. My mentor told me he has a reputation for editing communications repeatedly. I could not follow along reading on my own page as I was far more concerned watching his pen glide over my words. I could hear him mumble the sentences as he turned the first page. I had made it through an entire page without any corrections. One down, two to go I thought to myself. He finished another page with no marks. With the final page finished he sat back and looked at me. I knew that his next words would carry a lot of weight.
My mentor had previously warned me that he did not give many “atta boys” and neither did she. She said that if I did my work and I did not hear anything back from them, it meant I was doing well. As I sat breathlessly waiting for his report he looked at me and said, “It’s good. Here’s what we are going to do. You have a lot of good information and you obviously did your research. We are going to remove a few paragraphs and then present it to Council. This communication still has more questions that require more research, so we are going to give the Council the general information and let them take it from there. Rather than spend another week gathering small details I want to know if this project is something they want to pursue further. Since you have done so much research on this already if the Council does choose to move forward half of your work is already done.”
I was relieved. I had struggled with constantly revising my words and it passed the first test. I admit I had a lot on help from my mentor and fellow intern. I have learned my first real world lesson and I look forward to mastering the best writing style for Councils. However this is just the beginning for this project. If Council moves forward then not only will I have more writing and researching to do, but I will also have to present it. I will keep you posted.
Because Council members are very busy information is better conveyed when it flows like a good story. This is a difficult balance between presenting options for them to consider while maintaining a flowing structure. I had to try to step back from the information (which I had spent a week gathering and knew by heart), and think to myself “If I was being presented with this for the first time how would I think about it? In what order would questions come?” I tried to think of what kinds of questions might come to mind first, and then I tried to answer those questions in the writing as quickly as possible.
After several revisions and much help from my mentor and another intern who has been here for about a year and a half, I had an acceptable draft to present the Town Manager. To be honest I was nervous sitting across from him. I have never had my writing analyzed by a manager professionally. I have had my writing graded academically by teachers who had been city managers previously, but this is my first time working for a city/town and thus this was my first formal review of my work. He sat across from me and my mentor next to me. He had a silver metal pen to scan the pages. My mentor told me he has a reputation for editing communications repeatedly. I could not follow along reading on my own page as I was far more concerned watching his pen glide over my words. I could hear him mumble the sentences as he turned the first page. I had made it through an entire page without any corrections. One down, two to go I thought to myself. He finished another page with no marks. With the final page finished he sat back and looked at me. I knew that his next words would carry a lot of weight.
My mentor had previously warned me that he did not give many “atta boys” and neither did she. She said that if I did my work and I did not hear anything back from them, it meant I was doing well. As I sat breathlessly waiting for his report he looked at me and said, “It’s good. Here’s what we are going to do. You have a lot of good information and you obviously did your research. We are going to remove a few paragraphs and then present it to Council. This communication still has more questions that require more research, so we are going to give the Council the general information and let them take it from there. Rather than spend another week gathering small details I want to know if this project is something they want to pursue further. Since you have done so much research on this already if the Council does choose to move forward half of your work is already done.”
I was relieved. I had struggled with constantly revising my words and it passed the first test. I admit I had a lot on help from my mentor and fellow intern. I have learned my first real world lesson and I look forward to mastering the best writing style for Councils. However this is just the beginning for this project. If Council moves forward then not only will I have more writing and researching to do, but I will also have to present it. I will keep you posted.
Friday, June 5, 2009
About Me
I am Joseph Brehm, an Arizona native. I graduate in December this year. I have my undergraduate degree in Justice Studies with a minor in Communications. I was introduced to public service when I was 18 and I joined the Mesa Police Explorers. I spent 3 years with them and donated over 1,000 hours of service to the city of Mesa. I started my undergrad at ASU and began work with the ASU Police Department in a student security position. I worked for the department for 4 years. I had every intention of going from ASU to a police academy when I met Dr. Vanacour while I was on duty.
He was teaching a weekend class when he needed me to open a copy room for him. While we were waiting 5 minutes for the ancient copier was he talked to me about the MPA program. Those 5 minutes in a small copy room at the Mercado building changed my life. I started thinking about what other career options were out there. I knew that the private sector never had interested me. I did some research into the MPA and it sounded very interesting to me. I realized that the academy would always be there, so I enrolled and was accepted into the program. It has been an exciting ride ever since.
I applied for the 2009 Marvin Andrews Scholarship which was hosted by the ACMA. This scholarship paid a local city or town with a population of 50,000 or less or county with a population of 100,000 or less to host the recipient as a paid summer intern. I was fortunate enough to be awarded this scholarship and now I am here in Oro Valley. It is a town just a few miles north of Tucson. It started off as a bedroom community for people wanting to live just outside the city. Now it hosts an international biomedical company called Ventana. With a population of just over 41,000 the community has grown 500% from 1990. I have never interned for a city or town before. I am working with the Town Manager and reporting to the Management Assistant.
There is so much to learn here. In addition to getting used to a 9-5 schedule I have to keep up with the jargon, slang and abbreviations for everything. My entire first week I was going to bed at 8 because I was so mentally exhausted. I am learning an incredible amount, and while the education from the classes set the foundation, I highly recommend an internship to see how everything we learn comes into play. I have had some interesting experiences so far and I look forward to reading yours. Thanks for reading.
Joe
He was teaching a weekend class when he needed me to open a copy room for him. While we were waiting 5 minutes for the ancient copier was he talked to me about the MPA program. Those 5 minutes in a small copy room at the Mercado building changed my life. I started thinking about what other career options were out there. I knew that the private sector never had interested me. I did some research into the MPA and it sounded very interesting to me. I realized that the academy would always be there, so I enrolled and was accepted into the program. It has been an exciting ride ever since.
I applied for the 2009 Marvin Andrews Scholarship which was hosted by the ACMA. This scholarship paid a local city or town with a population of 50,000 or less or county with a population of 100,000 or less to host the recipient as a paid summer intern. I was fortunate enough to be awarded this scholarship and now I am here in Oro Valley. It is a town just a few miles north of Tucson. It started off as a bedroom community for people wanting to live just outside the city. Now it hosts an international biomedical company called Ventana. With a population of just over 41,000 the community has grown 500% from 1990. I have never interned for a city or town before. I am working with the Town Manager and reporting to the Management Assistant.
There is so much to learn here. In addition to getting used to a 9-5 schedule I have to keep up with the jargon, slang and abbreviations for everything. My entire first week I was going to bed at 8 because I was so mentally exhausted. I am learning an incredible amount, and while the education from the classes set the foundation, I highly recommend an internship to see how everything we learn comes into play. I have had some interesting experiences so far and I look forward to reading yours. Thanks for reading.
Joe
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