#ELGL18 takes place May 16, 17, and 18 in Golden, Colorado. In the coming days, we’ll announce each of the speakers and sessions. You can register for #ELGL18 here.
State of the City
Scott Lazenby, Author and City Manager
Podcast: Between Two Interns with Scott Lazenby
Author of Playing with Fire and State of the City, Lake Oswego City Manager Scott Lazenby will discuss the creative process for writing two fiction books about local government. Playing with Fire, published in 2001, was widely read by local government professionals and MPA students. The University of North Carolina MPA program focused a city management class around each chapter of Playing with Fire.
State of the City is described as a, “much-anticipated sequel to Playing With Fire, Trillium, Oregon and its city manager face a new and even more formidable adversary. Ben Cromarty is caught in the crossfire, trying to protect his staff from a vindictive council member as the city faces a series of attacks, mounted by powerful interest groups and a state government eager to do their bidding. Discussion questions are included for classroom and book club use.”
Scott Lazenby
Scott Lazenby’s avocation is writing, but in his day job he serves as the city manager for a town in Oregon. He also teaches public administration as an adjunct professor for Portland State University. He has a BA in physics from Reed College, an MS in public management & policy from Carnegie-Mellon University, and a PhD in public administration & policy from the Hatfield School of Government at Portland State.
Lazenby was born in Delhi, India, and has lived in Algiers, Geneva, Hong Kong, and Sydney. He and his wife Sandy have lived in Oregon for the past twenty years.
Writers are readers, and Lazenby’s interests range from thrillers and mysteries to sci-fi. His role model as an author is the late Michael Crichton, who used a wide variety of settings and concepts (Jurassic Park, Disclosure, Rising Sun) as the foundation for good stories.
Kent Wyatt (moderator)
Kent Wyatt is a senior management analyst for the City of Tigard, Oregon and co-founder of the Engaging Local Government Leaders (ELGL). Prior to moving to Oregon, Kent was a senior legislative analyst for the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission in Richmond, Virginia.
He is a member of the West Linn-Wilsonville Long Range Planning Committee and served a term on the Clackamas County Budget Committee.
Kent graduated from Elon University with a Bachelors of Science in Business Administration and obtained his Masters of Public Administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.