It’s Mount Rushmore season for ELGL members. We’re asking for your top four list on a variety of topics.
Greg Stopka
Strategy and Innovation Manager – Park District of Oak Park
City Departments
I work for a park district so I’ll say what I think are the most important local government functions:
- Leveraging the expertise and resources of a community to solve big challenges
- Addressing equity issues
- Improving quality of life for citizens
- Building citizen relationships with government and amongst each other
Movies
- Dead Poet’s Society
- Family Man
- It’s a Wonderful Life
- Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Office Pet Peeves
- “We have always done it that way”
- Filling out forms for the sake of filling out forms
- “Let’s put that plan on a shelf”
- “We can’t do that” (for whatever reason)”
Issues Facing Local Government
- Pending/potential property tax freezes
- Breaking Down Silos: Bureaucratic silos amongst institutions make it difficult to build relationships for community buy-in to do big things
- Disruptive Technology: how will automated cars impact tickets for example?
- Building Community and Civility: we tend to surround ourselves by people and groups that look and think like us. Hard to build a sense of community in this environment.
Oak Park Attractions
Amazing historical buildings