Community Based Government - Minnesota Style

As we begin implementing Community Based Government, I thought it would be instructive to provide links to the many cities that have been doing this for decades. While diminishing government revenues are a somewhat new concept in California, many rust belt cities experienced this phenomenon several decades ago when many of their manufacturing concerns headed south and overseas.

While the majority of the neighborhood revitalization programs are along the eastern seaboard, there are a smattering of great programs that were implemented in the upper midwest.

Minneapolis initiated their Neighborhood Revitalization Program (NRP) back in the late 1980s. '

The program now has an extensive web presence at http://www.nrp.org/

The site does a great job of providing the history of the program and describes the many programs currently in place. The website is also includes many resource pages that can be used by their local neighborhood groups. Here is their overview the program:

NRP Primer

THE NRP CONCEPT
The Minneapolis Neighborhood Revitalization Program (NRP) makes the city's residential areas better places to live, work, learn and play. NRP is an investment program based on truly empowering residents by bringing them into the priority-setting process of the city. It is based on the belief that the empowerment of residents and the mobilization of untapped resources, energy and creativity can make our collective desire for a better future a reality.

Neighborhood based priority setting, planning, and implementation are NRP's core. Residents and other neighborhood stakeholders create Neighborhood Action Plans (NAPs) that describe the neighborhood they want in the future and the goals, objectives and specific strategies that will help accomplish their vision. NRP completes the empowerment process by providing funding to each neighborhood to help implement their approved NAP.

Neighborhoods implement their NRP plans by working with government and others. Through NRP, residents have learned to work with City, County, Parks, Library and School staff, and to use these experts' knowledge and resources to help improve their neighborhood. Developing new partnerships and renewing old ones helps produce creative solutions. The partnerships created are as varied as the people and interests involved in neighborhoods.

All 84 Minneapolis neighborhoods are involved in NRP. Thousands of Minneapolis residents have used the NRP planning process to identify and help meet their neighborhood's housing, safety, economic development, recreation, health, social service, environment and transportation needs. They build a foundation for their future by organizing residents, gathering information, prioritizing needs, brainstorming solutions and implementing the NAP they develop. From increasing the amount of affordable housing to improving the environment, building community centers to creating new jobs and providing services to seniors, Minneapolis residents are the creators and catalysts of change - change aimed at reestablishing a sense of common purpose in their community.

Doing More with Less

One of the fundamental reasons for implementing Community Based Government is to find ways to maximize the skills of every employee to ensure that we are doing what can to do more with less. One of our staff members, Will Smith, passed on a perfect example of Community Based Government in Phoenix:


Phoenix police, waste firm patrol communities
by Sadie Jo Smokey and Michael Ferraresi - Jan. 16, 2010 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

The rumble and braking of a large green garbage truck. The hollow metallic clank of an empty garbage bin hitting the ground. Rhythmic, familiar sounds in neighborhoods across the city, so much so that they're often ignored.

That's what Phoenix police are counting on as dozens of truck drivers work anonymously while collecting garbage and watching the alleys, streets and businesses - a function many Block Watch and neighborhood patrol groups already provide to officers.

The new partnership is part of a national neighborhood program called Waste Watch. It's an alliance of Phoenix police and Waste Management employees who support public safety by reporting fires, broken windows, abandoned cars, suspicious people or criminal activity.

Phoenix is the first city in the state to participate. Waste Management, which primarily serves commercial clients, plans to expand the program statewide.

Meyer Turken, chairman of the McDowell Corridor Community Alliance in Maryvale, applauds the partnership, "especially due to the fact that the waste business is highly competitive and cost sensitive."

The concept is not new to drivers, said Melissa Quillard of Waste Management of Arizona. Many drive the same 150-mile route for years and often report crime or other suspicious activity. This partnership gives the newly trained 80 drivers a more efficient way to communicate with police. The drivers, who must pass a criminal background check, are trained on what to look out for, as well as the proper way to handle different situations.

"Just a few weeks ago, one of our drivers spotted a house fire while on route and immediately notified the authorities and woke up the people living inside," Quillard said.
Police officers said vigilant trash collectors will help patrol officers in ways similar to Phoenix citizen neighborhood patrols.

The Waste Watch program has trained about 4,000 drivers across the U.S. and Canada.
As many as 300 could be trained in the coming year, said Phoenix police Officer Jill Fowler, who oversees the city's neighborhood patrol training through the Police Department's Community Relations Bureau. Garbage workers will be trained how to relay details of suspicious activity to dispatchers so patrol officers can effectively respond.

Fowler said she envisions expanding the program to other Valley cities and providing similar training to companies like Valley Metro or UPS in light of economic strains on Valley police.

More on Community Based Government

As a follow up to Sunday's article, Dennis Wyatt wrote a column yesterday describing a future in which Community Based Government has taken hold in Manteca (click here).

While I encourage you to read the entire article, I especially hope you'll read his concluding statements:

Does this mean the residents are doing the city’s work? Yes and no. Even in good times Manteca lacks the manpower to make sure all storm drains are clear. By working together flooding issues that include people walking and driving through standing water could be addressed before they happen.

Community-based government has a lot of potential. It could make it possible to open a youth/community center in Southside Park to address the influence of gangs. The city would provide the structure plus equipment and the community the manpower through volunteers.

Given the fact 80 percent of government’s cost is manpower and the fact such solutions serve neighborhoods that those involved have a large stake in, about the only way Manteca can improve the services it provides is by engaging the people that the neighborhoods belong to in the first place.

Community-based government is a step in the right direction.

The core group of staff members who are putting together our plan of action are making great progress--I expect to have a detailed plan of action by February--and a significant change in the way the City does business will become apparent shortly thereafter.

Stay tuned!

By the way, this article from Lincoln, California is a perfect example of the power of proactive city workers (click here).

In case you missed it...

Community Based Government was the featured front page story in Sunday's Manteca Bulletin. I thought I would reprint it here to make sure everyone was aware of Dennis' story on the subject:

Rethinking how city serves Manteca
Community-based government being explored

By Dennis Wyatt
Managing Editor
dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com209-249-3532
POSTED Jan. 3, 2010 1:49 a.m.

De-centralized government could be the next big thing in Manteca.

Manteca is getting ready to re-invent the way it does business by borrowing a page from San Jose’s successful game plan that has en powered neighborhood level solutions to problems instead of everything funneling through a central bureaucracy.

The goal is to have people take control of neighborhoods, reduce government spending, and speed up staff response to problems.

“The community needs to decide what government should do and what they can do for themsleves,” noted City Manager Steve Pinkerton.

It is an outgrowth of the rapid reversal of municipal fortunes that saw Manteca slash general fund spending by $14 million this fiscal year in response to significant declines in property and sales tax revenue. Not only have most city employees taken two consecutive years of pay cuts but the city has eliminated over 50 positions by leaving them vacant and consolidating responsibilities with other jobs.

Pinkerton pointed out that over the years people have come to expect more and more of government and doing less on their own as an individual or a neighborhood. Having government take care of everything in a neighborhood can be slow and costly. It can also get the neighborhood solutions that they really don’t want.

San Jose has developed community-based government solutions by dividing the city into 14 zones as the South Bay community approached a million residents.

During a recent visit Pinkerton – along with Manteca police Public Affairs Officer Rex Osborn who has been tapped to help implement the program in Manteca – saw a prime example of how the concept works in San Jose to improve neighborhoods quicker and with much less money.
One involved littering in a neighborhood from children walking from school.

It was a quality of life issue for neighbors. In the old way of doing things, the city would have spent $300 to $500 on a large decorative concrete trash receptacle. In this instance, neighbors working with the city suggested simply buying a $20 trash can and a chain to secure it.
Initially it was put in front of the school but it wasn’t effective.

“They figured out real quick that it would take kids two to three minutes to eat their after school snacks,” Pinkerton said.

So the neighborhood – in working with a city employee assigned to that area – moved the can to another location essentially three minutes away by walking. The littering was drastically reduced.

And instead of the city incurring the cost of having someone go out and change the trash bags, a resident in the neighborhood volunteered to do it and was given a supply of Caltrans issued trash bags. He periodically switches out the bag and puts it with his household garbage for the city to pick up.

“What neighborhoods really want addressed may not be what government thinks they want addressed,” Pinkerton said.

The city manager said San Jose found out that when they tried to help with neighborhood problems on a City Hall level they’d come up with expensive projects that weren’t exactly dealing with what really was causing neighborhood concern.

And by eliminating the need to approve a project at the top, the solutions are more often than not substantially cheaper.

San Jose has gotten to the point that they have neighborhood community centers run entirely by volunteers who work with city workers assigned to the particular area.

One of the biggest road blocks, for example, to establishing a community center in Southside Park in Manteca to make further inroads against the influence of gangs is staffing costs.

Before the community-based government approach will be rolled out to engage residents, Pinkerton said the first goal is to change the culture at City hall.

Currently, for example, if a municipal worker such as a police officer or a parks worker sees an issue with something that is not in their job description they will report it to their supervisor.

They in turn relay it to the appropriate department and it goes from there.

“What we want to get to the point if a police officer sees a sprinkler head that is off and spraying water into the street they can directly call the city worker responsible for that area and the fix can get done now instead of later,” Pinkerton explained as one example of how it would work.
Instead of telling municipal employees that are what will happen, small groups of workers have been getting together for brainstorming how such a system could work and what would need to be done to accomplish the goal.

Pinkerton said employees are enthused about the team approach and decentralizing aspects of government operations to allow them flexibility to address problems. The city’s front-line workers have already suggested various ways of splitting Manteca up to make such a system work.

Once the employees are on board and have implemented their part of the system, the next step will be to reach out to neighborhoods.

At that point the city hopes to identify what people are willing to do in their neighborhoods through community meetings.

Pinkerton said they may be willing to help with litter pick up in parks or even with some landscaping tasks.

He noted it could be simply something on the order of what the Crossroads Grace Community Church is now doing after planting nearly 300 trees along the Moffat Boulevard leg of the Tidewater. They are monitoring the trees periodically and alerting the city when there is a problem that needs to be addressed.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, e-mail dwyatt@manetcabulletin.com

Customer Service

While we aren't yet at the New Year, 2010 will be the year of increased focus on customer service. I think we all realize that our customers are the most important aspect of our business. Not only do they provide the revenue that keep us afloat, they can also provide us with the guidance we need to decide how to allocate our resources.

One of our employees passed on this email the other day, and I thought it was a great example of the importance of customer service.

Before I left to for my errands, Sprint had me pretty wound up (you all probably heard). I called Applebee's and spoke to a pleasant, 12-year old sounding young woman (Ashley) who took my order and info, told me exactly how much my order would be and at exactly what time the order would be ready. She politely instructed me as to where I should park, what her name was, and that she would be happy to bring that out to my car.

Well...bla bla bla, I was still upset at Sprint, so walking out to my car I actually thought about calling and canceling my order and not going to Home Depot for the tree - cuz I was just mad that Sprint shows me as having a past-due amount when my online bank statement shows the payment in question has cleared.

AAAAAAny way....I got in the car, turned up the music, sang along with Kelly Clarkson, glared at a few irresponsible drivers on my way to the appropriate parking stall at Applebee's. Out bounces Ashley - looking all of 12 - and she says you must be the person who called, I could tell by the cool car. She gave me my order, reminded me of the amount, which I had cash (+tip), and she says I'll be right back with your change. I told her no need for change and she said OK then here is your receipt...I decorated it for you (all excited)! She told me to enjoy my lunch and she bounced back into the restaurant. I adjusted my bag of food on the front seat and realized she had decorated my bag w/my name and a big THANK YOU and a smiley face.

Wow...now that was customer service! I really felt like she meant it when she told me to "enjoy my lunch."

But wait! There's more....

So, I head over to Home Depot - busy parking lot, hoping to park close in case the rain really started coming down. No such luck finding a close parking space. I hustle in...still kinda mad at Sprint, but smiling because of Ashley. Then, the Home Depot Greeter catches me at the door..."Hi, can I help you find something?" I pointed to the Christmas area. She stepped aside and told me to let her know if I needed any help. She saw me struggling with the box and asked if I needed a cart, of course I said no. She quietly left and came back with a cart, grabbed the box from me and put it in the cart. She said, "there, now you can keep looking ." She shared a story with me about buying a discounted tree for her mother last year and that she hoped to get one for herself this year. Again, very pleasant, not over the top or annoying. She told me to have a good day as I left her area.

I got over to the self-check area and was fighting with the box to get the UPC Code in the right position so I could scan the box - and a checker came running towards me saying, "ma'am, ma'am, ma'am, I got'cha, put the box down."...she was pointing a scanner gun at me. In one motion, she scanned the box and placed back down in the cart, instructed me scan my card, push the finish button and wheeled me to the door. She, too, wished me a good day.

Two young men gathering carts in the parking lot asked me if I needed any help...of course I told them no. They told me to holler if I did need help getting the box in the car. I managed to get the box in the car all by myself...imagine that.

I practically skipped back to the car. How could I be mad at Sprint when everyone else was being so helpful and kind.

It appeared to me these employees were thrilled to be at "work." Again, I say, imagine that.

Guess I should call back to Applebee's and Home Depot and tell the on-duty managers about their employees that gave excellent customer service.

A great reminder of what a difference we can make in the lives of others.

San Jose Strong Neighborhoods Initiative

For decades, San Jose has been one of the most innovative cities in the country. While they've got many of the same challenges as most big cities, they've done a better job than most at working on solutions that actually create long term positive change. It is no coincidence that San Jose is one of the safest big cities in the country.

Back in the 1990s, San Jose was faced with an increase in gang and drug problems, like most cities, they put an emphasis on increased law enforcement. However, unlike most cities, they realized that addressing the crime wasn't enough. You can't materially change a situation unless you also look at the underlying issues that have caused the problem in the first place.

While others cities continued to add additional police officers (at considerable expense), San Jose began to look at all the other resources in the community and realized that while police are still the primary element in reducing crime, every city department and every citizen needed to play a role in reducing crime in the community. Thus, San Jose has far fewer Police officers per capita than most similar sized cities---and a low crime rate to boot!

I'll be talking more about the San Jose model in future blogs. While every city is unique, we can learn a lot from the San Jose experience that can be applied in Manteca and many other communties.

I've attached a business plan that was created for their Strong Neighborhoods Initiative--which is the driving force behind San Jose's focus on tapping the strengths of all of city staff and all of the community in improving the city's quality of life.

SNIBusinessPlanVersion7C.pdf

Community Based Government

This blog has had a strong emphasis on financial/labor issues over the past eight months. While the worldwide, national, state and local budget crisis continues unabated, I thought it was time to subtlety shift our focus to how we respond to this crisis.

It is painfully obvious that our community's financial situation is going to continue to deteriorate for some time, and then likely bounce along the bottom for a while. In addition, when the economy eventually improves, it is unlikely to generate property tax and sales tax dollars even close to what we experienced during the 2002-2006 bubble.

Understanding this reality, we in government still have a responsibility to provide excellent service to our community. In order to keep up service levels in an environment of declining resources requires outside the box thinking--and an outside the box resolution. We have to break the model we've been following in local government for 60 years.

The current model of local government is fairly standard from city-to-city, and includes a lot of participation on the part of the bureaucrats and little input from the community. We've been performing the same services for decades, and while we may tweak our delivery method from time to time, there has been no fundamental change in the way we do things.

Here in Manteca, we are about to change the fundamentals--we are going to turn government upside down--literally!

Since we no longer have the funds to do everything, we are going to find our what services are most important to our citizens, what services they'd prefer to do themselves, and what services are a waste of time and money.

I've attached a power point I presented to staff back in September that launched our initiative to convert Manteca to a government that is community based instead of bureaucrat based.

I'll be updating you periodically on what we are doing to shift to this model.

Vision%20Quest.ppt

Labor Update and a preview of "What's Next?"

The City's General Services unit approved the salary reduction plan in a vote yesterday. They are the sixth of the City's seven labor units to approve the plan. I realize it is never easy for someone to cut their salary, but the vote demonstrates that our employees understand the difficult economic situation we are facing. I think it also demonstrates a loyalty to the co-workers who would lose their jobs if the plan were not approved.

I realize that this sort of process isn't a morale booster. However, going through this process is far better than the alternative--which would have been a slow, painful and permanent deterioration of the city's workforce and its ability to deliver service to the public. My main goal in this process was threefold. First, it was to keep up service levels to the public--this could only be done by lowering our cost of doing business. Second, it was to keep the city's most important resource intact--and that was our workers. Third and equally important--was to ensure that we maintained a work environment in which our employees could thrive both personally and professionally--which couldn't be done without an adequate workforce in place and a competitive salary.

I believe that by proposing a pay cut that was primarily focused on non-taxable income and future income, it hopefully minimized the pain to each worker. In addition, the pay cut only solves about 25 percent of this year's deficit. By tapping reserves and one-time funds, 75 percent of the deficit burden was not borne by our workers. By offering an early retirement incentive package, and by forgoing the next two COLAs, we are hoping we can make it through the next couple years of this recession without losing any more of our valuable workforce.

With this behind us, the good news is that our workforce can now find ways to work towards a better future for our employees and our residents. At last week's Management Workshop, I made a presentation on what I'd like to call "Community Based Government." In order to deal with our future budget realities of ever-increasing demands and ever-diminishing resources, I'm a firm believer that we have to give our residents a greater voice in which services government should provide through our limited resources.

I'm not saying that services should be cut, I'm saying that we need to figure out which services need to be provided by a professional workforce and which services could be provided by the citizens themselves. The only way to do this is to focus more of our energies on working with the public to find out what they need us to do and what they can do themselves.

Frankly, this is the only model that can work in the future. Our citizens don't want to be taxed to the level it would take in order for us to provide every single service that they demand. We need to help them figure out which services that they really want from us.

You'll be hearing a lot more about this in the coming weeks. All of the city's management staff will be participating in sessions to better define what "Community Based Government" will be. We are also going to be putting together a team of line staff to figure out how we would actually implement our new way of doing business.

This will not be just another task for each of us, it will be a paradigm shift in the way we work. I look forward to talking to each employee about the role that they will play in our new way of doing business. If you are interested in serving on the implementation team, please give me a call or stop by my office.